•  CHALMERS 
COMES   BA 


CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 


By    W.    J.   DAWSON 

THE  WAR  EAGLE 

A  Contemporary  Novel 

ROBERT  SHENSTONE 
A  Novel 

THE    FATHER    OF  A  SOLDIER 
AMERICA  AND  OTHEU  POEMS 


CHALMERS 
COMES    BACK 


BY 

W.  J.  DAWSON 

AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  WAR  EAGLE" 

"ROBERT  SHENSTONE" 

"THE  FATHER  OF  A  SOLDIEB" 

ETC. 


NEW    YORK:     JOHN    LANE    COMPANY 

LONDON:    JOHN    LANE,    THE    BODLEY   HEAD 

MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BY  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

WHERE  THEY  LIE 

PART    ONE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  AWAKENING 15 

II    RETROSPECT  AND  VISION 29 

III  LONDON 46 

PART  TWO 

AN  APOLOGUE 83 

IV  THE  VOYAGE 87 

V    MARY  CHALLONER in 

VI    YALE 162 

VII    REQUIESCAT 210 

VIII    THE  UNDER-DOG .224 

IX    HEARTS'  HAVEN 254 

X    A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE    .     .     .     .  293 
THE  LONG   VENTURE 


2135384   ! 


WHERE  THEY  LIE 

Under  the  whip 

Of  scourge-keen  hail 

And  winds  that  fall  like  a  heavy  Hail 

On  the  stripped  earth,  pale  lip  to  lip 

They  lie,  whispering, 
Like  children  with  fast-clasp t  hands  in  bed 

Who  speak  of  things  they  love  and  dreadf 

And  fling 
'Arms  round  each  other  and  closer  cling 

For  every  angry  gust  of  rain 

That  rattles  the  ghostly  window-pane. 

Always  I  hear  them  whispering, 

And  they  are  telling  an  old  tale 

Of  Joy  that  did  not  last, 

Of  brief  Amazement  past, 

Of  Love  that  won  no  guerdon, 

And  the  long  grief  and  hard  Burden 

Of  Hope  deferred — 
The  little  things  that  stirred 
The  heart  to  great  pain, 
Such  as  letters  that  did  not  come, 

Not  a  word, 

From  careless  lover  or  friend, 
Loved,  who  loved  not  again; 

7 


8  WHERE  THEY  LIE 

And  the  waking  from  dreams  of  home. 
To  cold  dawns  and  misery  without  endf 
Or  of  larger  griefs  they  speak 
The  harassed  line  that  would  not  break, 

The  rage,  the  surprise,  the  wonder 

Of  the  long  retreat, 
And  the  guns'  pursuing  thunder: 
Of  the  peace  of  comrades  dead, 

Gathered  beyond  all  striving 

And  all  the  anguish  of  living 
Into  a  bosom  broad  and  sweet 
Where  they  were  comforted. 
O  God,  it  was  hard  to  bear, 
The  error  of  it  hard  to  pardon, 
To  hope  so  much  and  dare  so  much,  yet  share 

Always  the  Cross  and  never  the  Easter  Garden. 

So  they  lie, 

And  not  for  them  any  more 

The  bleak  road,  and  the  miry  ways, 

And  the  grey  low-hanging  sky, 

And  the  fierce  fixed  gaze 

Into  the  eyes  of  Death. 
Not  for  them  any  more 

The  painful  breath 
Of  broken  bodies,  over-tasked 

By  the  urge  of  the  spirit 
Giving  more  than  was  asked; 
And  the  passion  for  merit 
And  the  old  torturing  feart 
Of  being  thought  afraid, 


WHERE  THEY  LIE 

Of  failing  and  being  dismayed 
In  the  final  test,  when  very  clear 
Coming  unaware  and  very  near, 
Insistent,  like  none  heard  before 

Blew  the  bugles  of  Death — 
O  not  for  these, 
Who  lie  so  composed,  in  such  deep  ease, 

Shall  these  things  be  any  more. 

But  where  they  lie 

Under  the  wide  grey  sky 

And  all  the  changing  weather 

Flowers  have  begun  to  gather — 

Here  and  there  a  patient  violet, 

And  poppies  for  a  scarlet  coverlet. 

Always  poppies,  and  sweet-scented  clovert 

With  the  bees  hanging  over; 
And  lush  grass  nourished  on  blood, 
And  in  the  place  where  horses  stood 

A  green  spear  of  wheat, 
Nodding  like  a  girl  who  dances 

With  shy  intimate  advances 

And  tremulous  feet; 
And  through  the  shimmering  heat 

A  lark's  song  is  sweet, 
And  sometimes  there  is  rain 
Like  a  cool  liand  easing  pain; 
And  there  are  stars  that  wink  and  nod 
Like  lights  at  sea,  or  like  home-lights 

In  the  windows  of  God, 
Or  like  tiny  lamps  on  evil  nights 


id  WHERE  THEY  LIE 

Long  since  borne  over  heaped  fields  of  dead, 
Symbols  of  infinite  solace;  and  overhead 

At  all  times  the  utter  peace 

Where  all  troubles  cease, 

All  pain  of  body  and  mind 

All  strife  with  a  Fate  unkind, 

All  the  fever  and  Hame  and  riot 

Of  flesh  and  spirit  at  strife, 
All  the  fret  and  the  madness  of  Life 
Gathered  up  into  infinite  quiet, 

So,  where  they  lie 
Under  the  folding  sky 

I  see  not  corruption  alone; 
For  the  kind  grass  clasps  the  bleached  bone 
And  violets  are  rooted  in  eyeless  sockets, 
And  larks  nest  warm  in  dead  men's  pockets, 
And  scarlet  wounds  are  scarlet  poppies; 
And,  seeing  this,  my  final  hope  is 
That  out  of  Evil  Good  must  blossom, 
The  womb's  pang  and  the  mother  bosom 
Being  included  in  one  scheme, 
The  end  being  something  new,  a  dream 

Made  true  through  Pain 
That  Earth  must  some  time  turn  again 
To  the  gracious  ways  of  friend  and  lover 

When  War  is  over. 

For  these  who  lie 

So  tranquil  under  this  wide  sky 

Expected  this:  for  this  they  died, 


WHERE  THEY  LIE  n 

For  this  they  thrust  their  youth  aside 
And  the  secret  things  youth  coveted, 
And  hoped  would  be — 

The  one  face, 

And  the  close  embrace, 
And  children  gathered  at  the  knee — 
Yea,  even  their  bodies  Hung  aside 
Like  blood-stained  tunics,  worthless  quite, 
And  stood  up  in  the  Soul's  whiteness,  white 

As  God,  who  is  pure  Light. 
God,  who  understands  the  dead, 
Who  leaves  no  soul  uncomforted 

That  chose  the  right,  in  death's  despite; 
And,  unless  God  Himself  hath  lied, 
They  in  His  presence  shall  abide, 
And  the  hope  for  which  they  lived  and  died 

Shall  not  be  disinherited. 


PART  ONE 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  AWAKENING 


HE  came  out  of  his  long  trance  quite  suddenly. 
For  months  he  had  been  sunk  in  an  abyss  of  apathy, 
suffering  little,  thinking  little,  a  human  creature 
divided  from  the  world,  moving  on  its  dim  fringes 
like  an  uninterested  ghost.  Voices  reached  him, 
dulled  as  though  they  spoke  through  folds  of  wool; 
faces  approached  near  him,  but  they  remained  remote, 
inaccessible,  curiously  alien.  Men  and  women  had 
passed  his  bed  in  tedious  procession,  had  gazed, 
stooped  over  him,  and  gone  away  again.  He  was 
conscious  of  their  good  intentions,  of  their  shrewd, 
kindly,  wise  aspect,  but  they  wearied  him.  Weari- 
ness, indeed,  was  his  chief  sensation.  He  wanted  be- 
fore all  other  things,  to  be  left  alone.  He  had  lost 
the  habit  of  communication  with  his  kind  and  had 
no  wish  that  it  should  be  restored.  He  figured  him- 
self as  a  very  small  object,  adrift  on  a  vast  sea,  which 
had  no  horizon.  And  he  was  content  to  drift 

15 


16  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

He  knew  only  vaguely  who  he  was.  His  name — • 
yes,  he  could  remember  that.  It  was  John  Chalmers. 
He  tried  at  times  to  connote  the  associations  of  the 
name,  but  was  too  tired  to  pursue  the  quest  very  far. 
There  were  brief  flashes  of  recollection,  which  were 
like  pictures  of  scenery,  disclosed  suddenly  by  light- 
ning. He  saw  at  times  a  city,  metropolitan,  many- 
towered,  rising  from  the  sea,  starred  with  a  million 
lights.  Gracious  and  benignant  figures  walked  on  the 
terraces  that  fringed  the  sea;  lighted  vehicles  moved 
through  the  streets,  bells  rang,  voices  clamoured 
joyously,  an  immeasurable  life  swayed  and  eddied, 
an  infinite  stir  and  movement  shook  the  air.  He  knew 
that  he  had  once  had  a  part  with  these  multitudes,  but 
before  he  could  comprehend  what  that  part  was  the 
whole  vision  sank  into  the  sea,  and  the  lighted  towers 
went  out  like  fallen  rockets. 

He  saw  some  other  things  with  the  same  brief 
lucidity  and  with  the  same  inability  to  retain  or  com- 
prehend what  he  saw.  For  example,  a  landscape  of 
rolling  hills  and  woodlands,  autumn-coloured.  A  long 
white  house  with  many  windows,  clear  as  water,  a 
girl  standing  in  a  doorway  with  a  strange  look  of  tri- 
umph and  distress  upon  her  face.  He  would  have  liked 
to  interrogate  her,  for  he  was  sure  that  she  had  some- 
thing to  say  to  him  which  he  would  be  glad  to  hear. 
And  the  long  white  house  with  the  clear  windows,  and 
the  woods  with  their  great  splashes  of  crimson  and 
yellow,  and  the  footpath  that  drew  a  dim  upward 
curve  round  the  hills — all  were  familiar,  dear  to  him 
and  alluring;  yet  they  also  vanished,  like  the  pictures 


THE  AWAKENING  17 

children  see  in  sunset  skies  when  the  wind  drives  the 
clouds  into  new  shapes  and  conformations. 

Chief  of  all  his  sensations,  was  the  sensation  that 
something  had  happened  to  him.  What  it  was  he  did 
not  know,  but  it  was  something  monstrous  and  ter- 
rible. Something  thrilling,  too:  his  bones  yet  quiv- 
ered with  the  joy  of  it.  A  monstrous  joy — what  a 
contradiction  in  terms!  How  could  there  be  joy  in 
terror?  It  shaped  itself  in  his  memory  like  a  vast 
elation,  which  shook  the  universe.  It  had  a  voice,  a 
peculiar  quality  of  sound.  It  was  like  the  crashing 
of  worlds,  the  sublime  collision  of  flaming  planets. 
And  then  sudden  darkness  and  impenetrable  silence. 
It  was  silence  and  darkness  with  the  added  quality  of 
weight.  It  was  the  closing  down  of  something  like 
a  lid;  it  was  as  though  the  skies  had  fallen,  burying 
the  earth.  He  searched  his  mind  to  find  images  for 
it;  he  could  find  none  vast  enough.  Then  he  grew 
tired  of  trying.  He  decided  that  he  was  dead.  The 
ponderous  weight  that  had  fallen  on  him  was  the 
coffin-lid.  It  was  enough  that  he  was  quiet.  If  this 
was  death  it  was  not  to  be  greatly  dreaded.  It  con- 
sisted merely  in  lying  very  still.  There  came  to  him 
the  memory  of  words  he  had  heard  sung  in  churches, 
on  summer  evenings  when  the  electric  lights  sprang 
up  suddenly  through  the  dusk  of  lofty  roofs — 

Teach  me  to  dread 
The  grave  as  little  as  my  bed. 

Well,  they  were  quite  right.  There  was  nothing  to 
dread  in  being  dead.  It  was  merely  going  to  bed  in 
the  dark. 


i8  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

These  sensations  were  after  all  occasional,  episodic, 
precarious.  They  were  like  the  spent  waves  of  a  dis- 
tant storm ;  they  rolled  up  the  shore  of  consciousness, 
swiftly  withdrew,  and  all  was  quiet  again.  An  im- 
mense quiet,  as  if  a  clock  that  he  had  heard  all  his  life 
had  suddenly  ceased  to  tick.  A  quiet  so  profound 
that  one  could  hear  the  blood  run  in  one's  veins,  and 
one's  pulses  beat.  And  he  had  grown  to  like  it.  He 
thought  he  knew  now  what  poets  meant  when  they 
talked  of  "hearing  the  silence."  He  was  terrified  lest 
he  should  lose  it.  If  the  clock  started  ticking  again 
he  would  want  to  scream,  like  a  frightened  child.  He 
was  afraid,  too,  of  any  kind  of  movement.  If  he 
turned  in  his  bed  it  was  by  infinitesimal  stages.  If 
he  lifted  his  hand,  it  was  with  the  same  excess  of 
caution.  As  for  speaking,  it  was  many  weeks  since 
he  had  tried  to  speak.  He  had  lost  the  desire  to  speak 
and,  it  would  seem,  the  faculty. 

So  he  had  lain  very  still,  a  creature  flung  out  upon 
the  edges  of  human  life  by  a  mysterious  catastrophe. 
External  things  he  still  recognised,  but  it  was  like 
seeing  something  enacted  on  a  distant  stage,  which  he 
watched  from  afar  in  a  darkened  theatre.  He  knew 
that  there  were  such  phenomena  as  dawn  and  dark- 
ness. Near  his  bed  was  a  wide  window  which  framed 
an  exquisite  landscape.  He  felt  a  faint  thrill  of 
pleasure  when  the  hills  grew  rosy  in  the  morning  light, 
and  he  had  learned  to  look  for  a  bright  star  which 
hung  over  them  when  evening  fell.  The  sound  of  the 
wind  in  the  trees  also  gave  him  pleasure;  it  was  like 
a  song  sung  by  an  old  nurse  beside  a  cradle,  and  it 


THE  AWAKENING  19 

brought  him  the  boon  of  sleep.  He  wondered  some- 
times what  the  world  was  really  like  outside  that  wide 
window  and  thought  that  he  would  like  to  explore  it. 
Then  he  told  himself  that  he  was  much  safer  as  he 
was.  Within  those  white  walls  was  security;  who 
knew  what  perils  lurked  without  ?  He  had  belonged  to 
that  outer  world  once,  and  it  was  there  his  great  catas- 
trophe had  happened. 


n 

For  some  days  he  had  been  conscious  of  a  new  ele- 
ment that  had  begun  to  work  in  him.  It  was  like 
the  rising  of  sap  in  a  tree,  like  the  soft  continuous 
pressure  of  force  that  pushes  open  folded  buds,  like 
the  silent  waveless  advance  of  a  tide  in  a  landward 
inlet  of  the  sea.  At  first  it  frightened  him;  then  he 
became  curious  about  it.  He  noticed  that  he  slept 
now  without  the  dreams  that  had  so  long  tortured 
him,  and  woke  with  a  sense  of  well-being.  He  lifted 
his  hands,  not  with  the  old  caution,  but  with  abrupt 
movements,  finding  pleasure  in  the  act.  He  found  his 
lips,  which  had  so  long  been  hardened  in  a  stiff  line 
of  endurance,  curved  and  relaxed  in  a  smile.  A 
weight  was  lifted  from  his  heart;  surely  it  was  beat- 
ing in  a  new  way,  with  a  fuller  rhythm.  Then,  at 
last,  on  an  unforgettable  and  splendid  morning,  he 
came  to  the  full  knowledge  of  himself.  He  was 
Captain  John  Chalmers  of  the  Field  Artillery,  who 
had  been  reported  missing,  God  only  knew  how  many 
months  ago. 


20 

He  sat  up  in  bed  and  looked  round. 

It  was  early  morning;  he  knew  that  by  the  rose- 
colour  of  the  hills,  which  he  saw  through  the  window. 
He  saw  other  things,  too;  trees  shaken  by  the  dawn 
wind,  a  black  group  of  pines  on  a  rocky  hill,  and  be- 
yond it  the  immortal  azure  of  the  sea.  Among  the 
trees  was  a  pink-washed  house,  with  portico,  balconies, 
and  a  garden  full  of  colour.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill 
S.  boy  led  a  flock  of  sheep,  playing  a  shrill  sweet  air 
\ipon  a  wooden  fife.  It  was  like  a  Greek  idyll,  staged 
for  his  especial  benefit. 

He  looked  round  upon  the  room  in  which  he  lay. 
It  had  many  beds,  in  which  men  lay  silent.  Its  walls 
were  white  and  plain;  the  only  decoration  was  Flags 
— the  French  Tricolour,  the  Union  Jack,  the  Stars  and 
Stripes!  Something  rose  in  his  heart  as  he  saw  the 
flags.  He  would  have  liked  to  kiss  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  but  he  was  uncertain  if  his  feet  would  bear 
him  so  far.  It  was  his  flag;  how  could  he  ever  have 
forgotten  that?  And  the  others — he  loved  them  too. 
He  had  seen  them  carried  forward  together  in  a  long 
line  of  battle.  Of  course — now  he  knew.  He  had 
been  wounded,  and  this  was  a  hospital.  He  was 
Captain  John  Chalmers  who  had  been  left  for  dead 
upon  the  field  when  the  Hindenburg  Line  was  shat- 
tered. 

His  memory,  which  had  been  blank  so  long,  was 
suddenly  illumined.  On  the  palimpsest  of  the  brain 
all  the  past  was  written,  but,  as  it  were,  in  invisible 
ink.  A  living  heat  of  new-born  health  now  drew  out 
the  secret  lettering.  Pictures  passed  before  his  mind's 


THE  AWAKENING  21 

eye;  marching  men,  horses  standing  in  a  deep  ravine, 
dead  men  lying  in  the  mire,  living  men  hidden  in  the 
unconscious  wheat,  a  bugle-note,  a  ringing  voice,  an 
immense  rush  forward  of  guns,  men,  horses,  confused 
yet  orderly,  organised  into  a  single  unit,  moving  with 
deliberate  haste  to  a  predetermined  goal — and  then  ? — 
Then,  the  Blackness  which  obliterated  everything,  the 
sense  of  churned  mud,  wet  earth,  broken  bodies,  in- 
tense loneliness,  dereliction,  desolation,  a  groaning 
earth,  whose  very  axles  and  pivots  were  shattered; 
and,  pinned  beneath  them,  God  Himself,  flung  out  and 
buried  in  the  flaming  ruin  of  his  Sun-Chariot.  And 
it  was  he,  John  Chalmers,  who  had  witnessed  these 
things,  had  been  left  for  dead  on  these  fields  of  cor- 
ruption, and  had  been  rescued  after  many  days. 

He  tried  to  fill  in  the  details  of  the  picture,  to  re- 
call his  spent  sensations.  He  remembered  chiefly  the 
falling  of  rain,  a  persistent  persecuting  rain  that  had 
no  end.  Heavy  clouds  had  rolled  up  in  interminable 
companies,  discharging  crystal  rods  of  water  that 
pierced  like  shrapnel;  wet  mists  that  travelled  slowly 
over  the  soaked  ground  like  poison  gases;  a  grave  of 
fetid  mud  in  which  he  sank  deeper  every  moment,  a 
terrible  silence  broken  only  by  this  ambiguous  voice 
of  the  falling  rain.  He  raised  his  head  from  time  to 
time,  but  he  could  see  nothing  for  the  rain  and  mist. 
He  tried  to  shout,  but  discovered  that  his  voice  had 
left  him.  What  else  had  happened  to  him  he  did  not 
know.  His  whole  body  seemed  broken;  yet,  beyond 
congealed  blood  at  the  back  of  his  head  and  a  burn- 


22  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

ing  pain  in  his  right  foot,  he  could  find  no  evidence 
of  injury. 

Delirious  dreams  visited  him.  He  dreamed  of  im- 
mense feasts  in  rooms  lit  by  blazing  fires.  He 
dreamed  of  long  halls,  filled  with  the  comfortable 
smell  of  hot  coffee,  of  a  piano  playing,  of  men  sing- 
ing. He  dreamed  of  hot  water  running  in  a  porcelain 
bath,  the  cleanly  smell  of  soap,  the  delight  of  warm 
towels.  He  woke  to  a  newly  intensified  sense  of  cold, 
filth  and  hunger.  A  long  way  off  he  saw  at  last  two 
men  in  blood-stained  khaki.  They  drew  nearer  to 
him,  turning  over  the  relics  of  the  dead  with  muddy 
boots.  They  reached  him,  stooped  over  him,  and  one 
of  them  thrust  a  rain-wet  hand  into  the  bosom  of  his 
tunic.  They  looked  at  one  another,  nodding  gravely. 
The  next  thing  he  knew  was  that  he  was  lifted  gently, 
carried  between  them  on  a  canvas  sheet,  laid  on  a 
mattress  in  an  ambulance.  From  that  moment  every- 
thing became  blurred  to  him.  He  faintly  recognised 
the  grind  of  steel  wheels  on  iron  rails,  knew  that  he 
was  moved  swiftly  over  many  leagues  of  country, 
reached  at  last  the  room  with  the  wide  window,  from 
which  he  saw  the  hills  rosy  with  the  dawn,  and  the 
one  star  that  hung  over  them  like  a  punctual  evening 
lamp.  And  now,  at  the  end  of  this  measureless  period 
of  apathy,  there  had  come  this  splendid  morning,  when 
he  woke  as  a  man  should,  conscious  of  himself,  and 
eager  to  possess  the  world  which  was  his  heritage. 


JHE  AWAKENING  23 

in 

He  began  to  reconstruct  his  life.  He  was  reminded 
oddly  of  a  craze  which  once  existed  for  fitting  to- 
gether pieces  of  wood  cut  by  a  jig-saw.  The  art  of 
the  game  lay  in  finding  the  master  piece.  When  that 
was  discovered  the  others  soon  fell  into  place,  and 
the  general  design  became  apparent. 

The  master  piece,  the  key  to  the  puzzle,  he  had  found 
in  the  recovered  knowledge  of  his  identity.  Round 
that  he  began  to  fit  the  scattered  fragments  of  his  life. 
His  first  thoughts  were  of  his  comrades  in  arms. 
There  was  his  batman,  Baldy :  where  was  he?  Baldy 
was  not  his  name;  it  was  his  nickname.  He  was  a 
little  man,  compactly  built,  who  had  lied  about  his  age 
when  he  entered  the  army,  representing  himself  as  five 
and  twenty  when  he  was  at  least  five  and  thirty,  and 
explaining  his  baldness  by  the  remark  that  it  ran  in 
the  family.  That  was  the  origin  of  the  nickname, 
to  which  he  answered  with  a  genial  grin. 

Baldy  had  served  him  with  a  dog-like  devotion. 
However  vile  the  roads  and  weather,  Baldy  had  pre- 
sented him  each  morning  with  a  carefully  brushed 
tunic  and  clean  boots.  And  he  was  always  cheerful, 
meeting  all  sorts  of  discomforts  and  disasters  with 
that  inevitable  grin  of  his. 

There  were  Foley  and  Crashaw,  his  brother  officers 
and  chief  friends.  Foley  had  Irish  blood,  and  by  vir- 
tue of  it  took  war  as  a  riotous  adventure.  Crashaw 
was  his  entire  opposite — a  tall  lean  fellow,  with  dark 
brooding  eyes,  and  an  imagination.  The  three  had 


24  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

exchanged  letters  on  the  night  before  the  great  battle. 
Whoever  survived  was  to  mail  the  letters  of  the  others 
to  his  folk.  Foley  had  written  his  in  high  spirits,  end- 
ing with  a  joke  on  the  luck  of  the  Irish.  Crashaw 
had  written  his  with  the  solemnity  of  a  man  who 
makes  his  last  will  and  testament.  How  well  he  could 
see  them  both  as  they  wrote!  The  place  was  a  foul 
dug-out  lit  by  a  guttering  candle  thrust  into  the  neck 
of  an  empty  bottle.  It  was  roofed  with  two  planks, 
across  which  the  body  of  a  dead  German  lay.  The 
blood  dripped  from  the  body  and  splashed  their  clothes 
as  they  wrote,  but  they  were  too  utterly  weary  to  take 
the  pains  to  remove  it.  Besides,  they  had  all  lived  in 
the  reek  of  blood  so  long  that  they  were  indifferent  to 
it.  That  very  day  a  German  shell  had  found  the 
range  of  their  battery,  and  they  had  seen  the  air  full 
of  the  torn  flesh  and  broken  bodies  of  the  gunners, 
scattered  in  unrecognisable  promiscuity.  Had  Foley 
and  Crashaw  disappeared  in  the  same  way? 

The  recollection  of  these  farewell  letters  at  once 
suggested  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed. 
Foley's  was  addressed  to  his  mother  in  Baltimore, 
Crashaw's  to  a  girl  in  Providence.  The  very  names 
of  these  places  brought  inextinguishable  memories, 
pictures  of  leafy  avenues  and  sedate  streets,  of  a  white 
marble  dome  against  a  blue  sky,  of  lighted  trains 
emerging  from  a  tunnel  into  thronged  and  spacious 
stations,  of  clamant  trolleys  screaming  on  the  sharp 
curve  of  polished  rails,  of  picture  signs  flaring  on  the 
soft  dusk  of  evening  clouds,  with  all  the  rhythm  of 
the  streets,  and  the  smell  of  markets  and  of  horses  and 


THE  AWAKENING  25 

of  over-ripe  fruit,  and  above  all,  and  penetrating  all, 
the  sharp  odour  of  the  sea.  It  created  in  his  mind  an 
overwhelming  nostalgia.  His  heart  swelled  in  his 
bosom  and  his  eyes  burned  with  tears.  He  could 
imagine  no  better  heaven  than  these  remembered 
places,  and  he  wondered  whether  Foley  had  found  his 
mother  and  Crashaw  his  sweetheart,  while  he  himself 
had  been  sunk  in  long  oblivion.  Perhaps  at  that  very 
hour  Foley  was  going  to  a  picture-show  in  Baltimore, 
and  Crashaw  sitting  with  his  sweetheart  on  the  sands 
at  Narragansett.  Or  they  might  be  dead — their 
bodies  might  be  scattered  into  unremembered  frag- 
ments like  the  bodies  of  the  slain  gunners,  and  their 
spirits  drifting  vaguely  on  the  wide  fields  of  air. 

And  that  house  with  the  clear  windows,  standing 
against  the  background  of  red  and  yellow  woods — he 
recognised  that  now  with  heart-breaking  distinctness. 
It  was  his  uncle's  home  among  the  Berkshire  hills,  and 
there  Mary  Challoner  dwelt  It  was  she  who  stood 
in  the  porch,  with  that  strange  look  of  triumph  and 
distress  on  her  face.  He  had  gone  there  to  say  good- 
bye to  her,  and  as  he  took  her  hand  for  the  last  time 
he  had  known  that  he  loved  her.  She  had  kissed 
him  with  a  cool  cousinly  kiss  upon  his  forehead — and 
then,  as  though  a  long  restrained  emotion  had  swelled 
like  a  flood  in  her  and  overflowed,  she  had  flung  her 
arms  round  his  neck,  and  had  kissed  him  on  the  lips. 
They  had  clung  together  for  a  moment  and  separated 
with  pale  faces.  No  word  was  spoken,  for  none  was 
needed.  Then  he  had  turned  and  gone  down  the  long 
garden  path  to  the  gate  where  the  automobile  waited, 


26  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

and  had  been  swiftly  borne  away  into  the  unknown 
life.  It  was  to  Mary  Challoner  he  had  written  that 
last  letter  in  the  foul  dug-out  on  the  night  before  the 
great  engagement. 

He  was  so  absorbed  in  these  memories  that  he  had 
not  noticed  the  door  of  the  room  open  and  a  soft- 
footed  Red  Cross  nurse  glide  toward  his  bed.  She 
stood  looking  at  him  intently. 

"Good  morning,"  he  said  cheerfully. 

"You  are  better?"  she  asked  doubtfully. 

"I  am  quite  well,"  he  replied. 

"I  must  fetch  the  doctor,"  she  said. 

She  left  the  room,  and  a  few  moments  later  re- 
turned, accompanied  by  a  tall  spectacled  man  in  uni- 
form. He  was  grey-haired  with  keen  blue  eyes,  and 
a  kindly  smile. 

"What's  this  I  hear?"  he  asked. 

"That  I  am  quite  well,  and  very  hungry,  doctor." 

"Ah,  that  sounds  hopeful.  Yes,  it's  distinctly  hope- 
ful." 

He  began  to  feel  a  shade  of  annoyance  at  the  atti- 
tude of  the  nurse  and  the  doctor.  They  were  evi- 
dently sceptical  about  his  statement  that  he  was  quite 
well. 

"Do  you  know  where  you  are?"  said  the  doctor. 

"No,  I  don't,  but  I  know  who  I  am.  I  am  Captain 
John  Chalmers  of  the  Canadian  Field  Artillery,  First 
Division,  Second  Battery.  I  suppose  I've  been  ill,  or 
I  shouldn't  be  here.  I  assure  you  I  woke  an  hour 
ago  feeling  quite  well,  and  I'm  anxious  to  get  back 


THE  AWAKENING  27 

to  my  battery  at  once.  How  long  before  you  can  let 
me  go,  doctor  ?" 

"Why,  bless  your  soul,  the  man's  as  sane  as  I  am," 
exclaimed  the  doctor.  "Shell-shock — well  it  does 
sometimes  happen  like  this  ...  yes — sudden  re-ad- 
justment, like  a  derailed  train  finding  the  rails  again." 

"Shell-shock — so  that  was  what  it  was,  was  it, 
doctor?" 

"That  and  other  things.  Several  other  things,  in 
fact.  A  bullet  in  the  foot,  for  one  thing,  and  a  frac- 
tured skull,  for  another." 

"What  Baldy  would  have  called  a  little  accident,  eh  ? 
He  was  once  blown  thirty  yards  through  a  trench,  and 
he  wrote  home  on  a  post-card  that  he'd  had  a  little 
accident." 

"Who's  Baldy?"  said  the  doctor. 

"My  batman.  He  was  a  little  bald  man  with  a 
perpetual  grin.  And  one  of  the  best  fellows  who  ever 
lived." 

"So  you  remember  all  about  him?" 

"Of  course  I  do.     Why  shouldn't  I?" 

"Young  man,"  said  the  doctor  solemnly,  "you  may 
not  know  it,  but  you're  a  miracle.  We  thought  we 
had  you  on  our  hands  for  keeps,  but  now " 

"Now  I'm  quite  well,  and  I  want  to  get  back  to 
the  Front.  How  soon  can  you  send  me,  doctor?" 

"Well,"  said  the  doctor,  with  a  quizzing  smile, 
"you  see  a  good  deal  of  water  has  run  under  the 
bridges  since  we  first  had  the  pleasure  of  your  ac- 
quaintance. As  for  the  Front,  there  isn't  one." 


28  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"You  don't  mean  we're  licked?  Don't  tell  me 
that." 

"No,  I  guess  it's  the  other  party  that  is  licked.  You 
won't  be  wanted  at  the  Front  any  more,  believe  me. 
In  fact,  the  war's  over." 

"£rood  God,"  said  Chalmers,  and  promptly  fainted. 


IN  the  days  that  ensued,  Chalmers  endeavoured 
eagerly  to  fill  up  the  long  hiatus  in  his  knowledge  of 
the  world.  As  the  doctor  had  said,  a  great  deal  of 
water  had  run  under  the  bridges  since  he  was 
wounded. 

In  the  old  days,  when  he  had  thought  of  the  end 
of  the  war,  he  had  imagined  it  as  a  swift  return  from 
madness  to  sanity.  The  world  would  go  to  bed  on  a 
couch  of  horror  one  night,  and  wake  the  next  morn- 
ing cleansed  and  cheerful,  with  a  clear  sun  shining  in 
pure  heavens.  Things  would  all  be  as  they  were  before 
the  war,  and  men  would  be  like  adventurous  exiles, 
who  come  back  to  the  old  home,  and  find  nothing 
altered.  He  saw  now  the  grossness  of  his  error.  A 
swift  reconstitution  of  society  was  impossible.  The 
road  back  to  normal  modes  of  life  was  as  long  as  the 
road  that  led  from  them.  It  was  the  same  road,  and 
it  had  to  be  retravelled  to  its  last  weary  mile. 

The  doctor  helped  him,  even  more  than  the  news- 
papers, to  adjust  his  mind  to  the  new  perspectives  of 
this  changed  world. 

29 


30  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

Dr.  Dean  had  a  large  faculty  of  shrewdness  which 
sometimes  reached  the  quality  of  philosophic  vision. 
He  took  a  deep  interest  in  Chalmers  from  a  scientific 
point  of  view,  for  his  case  was  remarkable;  and,  with 
the  recovery  of  his  patient,  this  interest  was  trans- 
formed into  warm  friendship.  He  was  resolved  that 
Chalmers  should  not  leave  the  hospital  until  he  was 
thoroughly  capable  of  taking  his  place  in  the  world. 

"Six  months  out  of  a  man's  conscious  life  is  a 
pretty  serious  hiatus,"  he  remarked.  "You  can't  join 
up  the  broken  parts  of  the  mind  with  a  silver  plate  as 
you  can  a  broken  thigh.  You  must  be  patient  and  let 
them  grow  together." 

In  his  own  thoughts  he  doubted  if  they  would  or 
could  completely  grow  together.  Chalmers  was  to 
him  a  Lazarus  mysteriously  raised  from  the  tomb,  and 
he  could  not  imagine  that  the  risen  Lazarus  was  the 
same  Lazarus  who  took  all  the  pride  and  joy  of  youth 
to  the  bed  of  death.  He  resumed  life,  indeed,  but 
surely  upon  a  different  plane.  To  eyes  upon  which 
the  weight  of  corruption  had  lain,  to  ears  filled  with 
the  black  silences  of  the  sepulchre,  all  earthly  sights 
and  sounds  must  have  been  altered.  He  would  move 
henceforth  a  man  aloof  from  men.  He  would  speak 
the  common  language  of  men,  but  with  a  new  accent. 
He  would  sit  again  at  the  feasts  of  lovingkindness, 
but  it  would  be  with  eyes  fixed  on  something  far  off, 
with  solemn  and  brooding  eyes  that  gazed  through  the 
veils  of  time  into  secrets  and  depths  which  no  other 
could  behold  with  him. 

It  was  so  that  he  thought  of  Chalmers,  wondering 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  31 

much  whether  this  long  lapse  in  his  being  would  not 
give  an  entirely  new  bias  to  his  character.  But  he 
felt  at  the  same  time  that  it  was  his  duty  to  do  what 
he  could  to  fill  up  the  hiatus  in  his  mind.  He  must 
prepare  him  for  the  new  world  he  had  to  live  in.  It 
was  like  sending  a  boy  out  into  a  life  of  which  he  had 
no  knowledge.  Healing  the  body  was  a  light  task; 
the  more  difficult  task  was  to  reconstruct  the  broken 
organism  of  the  mind,  and  it  was  to  this  task  that  the 
doctor  set  himself  with  tireless  assiduity. 

In  long  conversations  on  the  verandah  of  the  hos- 
pital or  during  walks  among  the  pine  groves  and  be- 
side the  sea,  the  doctor  did  his  utmost  to  restore  to 
his  patient  the  dropped  clues  of  life.  His  text  was, 
"It's  one  thing  to  wreck  a  world  and  quite  another 
thing  to  rebuild  it.  One  hour's  bombing  may  tear 
great  gaps  in  a  Cathedral  which  has  stood  for  cen- 
turies ;  how  long  will  it  take  to  obliterate  the  damage  ? 
And  civilisation  is  like  Rheims  Cathedral,  battered 
into  ruin  by  the  brief  fury  of  vandalism,  and  it  will 
have  to  be  rebuilt  patient  stone  by  stone.  Can  it 
be  rebuilt  at  all  ?  Or,  if  it  can,  will  it  be  in  the  same 
pattern  or  with  a  new  method  and  intention?  The 
most  terrible  thing  about  war  is  not  its  harvest  but 
its  aftermath." 

"It's  a  pity  we  didn't  exterminate  the  whole  German 
race  while  we  were  about  it,"  said  Chalmers  bitterly. 
"There  are  horrors  burned  into  my  memory,  obsceni- 
ties, bestialities,  foulnesses,  diabolic  cruelties  so  un- 
thinkable that  I  feel  as  though  I  were  personally  dis- 
honoured and  shameful  in  recollecting  them.  They've 


32  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

drenched  the  world  in  such  a  flood  of  stinking  vileness 
that  it's  hard  to  conceive  it  ever  growing  sweet  again. 
And  the  worst  thing  about  it  is  that  by  such  acts 
they've  befouled  and  degraded  the  common  imagina- 
tion of  mankind.  There's  not  a  child  of  this  genera- 
tion who  can  escape  thinking  familiarly  of  things  that 
an  earlier  generation  of  grown  people  never  named 
even  in  whispers — rape,  for  instance,  and  the  disem- 
bowelling of  women,  and  the  obscene  mutilation  of 
prisoners — mutilations  that  destroyed  in  them  the  pos- 
sibility of  fatherhood.  My  God,  when  I  think  of  it 
all,  I'm  sorry  that  there  is  a  single  German  left  alive." 

"I  agree  with  you,"  said  the  doctor.  "I  regard  Ger- 
many as  a  leper  nation,  and  like  all  lepers  they  ought 
to  be  segregated.  I  think  the  general  attitude  of  so- 
ciety will  be  of  that  nature.  We  shall  segregate 
them  so  far  as  social  intercourse  is  concerned.  No 
man  who  holds  in  his  memory  Raemaekers'  cartoons 
will  be  willing  to  sit  at  the  same  table  with  a  German 
or  admit  him  to  his  home ;  and  no  man  who  recollects 
Bethmann  Hollweg's  justification  of  perfidy  and  false- 
hood, will  be  willing  to  trust  a  German's  promise  or 
trade  with  him.  We  may  do  all  that  as  individuals; 
but  politically  I  suppose  the  most  that  we  can  do  is  to 
draw  the  dragon's  teeth,  and  pare  his  claws,  and  pre- 
vent him  from  doing  the  same  kind  of  mischief 
again." 

"Dragons  and  man-eating  tigers  should  be  shot  at 
sight,"  said  Chalmers.  "It's  poor  policy  to  shut  them 
up  in  menageries.  They're  only  harmless  when 
they're  dead." 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION,  33 

ii 

Reflecting  on  this  conversation  one  night,  as  he  sat 
alone  on  a  bench  beneath  the  pine  trees,  looking  out 
upon  a  moon-washed  sea,  he  was  a  little  shocked  and 
astonished  at  the  bitterness  of  his  temper. 

He  knew  that  his  fundamental  instincts  were  hu- 
mane and  kindly.  He  could  remember  that  as  a  boy 
he  had  often  stepped  aside  rather  than  tread  upon  a 
worm.  He  had  put  tiny  birds  back  into  the  nests 
from  which  they  had  fallen,  he  could  never  bring  him- 
self to  shoot  game,  and  his  pleasure  in  fishing  was 
quite  spoiled  by  the  necessity  of  killing  the  fish  he 
caught.  And  he  remembered,  too,  that  when  he 
fought  through  his  first  campaign,  he  had  no  real 
hatred  of  his  enemy.  He  was  "Fritzie" — a  creature 
to  be  pitied  not  hated.  He  had  shared  cigarettes  and 
chocolates  with  him  when  he  had  been  brought  into 
camp  a  prisoner.  He  had  thought  of  him  as  a  fellow- 
soldier,  though  an  enemy. 

But  these  magnanimous  attitudes  of  mind  had  been 
slowly  modified,  and  he  could  fix  the  exact  occasion 
when  the  modification  began.  It  was  on  a  certain 
day  when  he  was  coming  out  of  battle  with  a  brother 
officer,  a  mere  boy  of  nineteen  named  Adair.  They 
passed  a  wounded  German,  howling  pitifully  in  the 
.mud. 

"Poor  blighter,"  said  Adair,  "don't  you  think  I 
should  give  him  first  aid?" 

He  stooped  over  the  suffering  man,  giving  him  such 
aid  as  he  could,  and  promising  to  send  a  stretcher- 


34  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

bearer  to  him,  if  one  could  be  found.  The  German 
glared  at  him  sullenly  and  expressed  no  gratitude. 
Young  Adair  turned  his  back  to  leave  him.  In  a  mo- 
ment the  brute  drew  his  revolver  and  shot  Adair  dead. 
And  at  that  atrocious  deed,  red  rage  sprang  up  in 
Chalmers'  heart.  He  cursed  the  murderer,  emptied 
his  revolver  into  him,  and  kicked  the  body  in  insen- 
sate fury.  That  was  the  hour  when  he  began  to  hate. 
Henceforth  his  foe  was  no  more  "Fritzie,"  but  a  foul 
monster,  the  product  of  a  monstrous  system,  a  crea- 
ture of  reptilean  obscenity  whom  it  was  God's  justice 
to  slay  and  utterly  exterminate. 

Many  similar  memories  haunted  him. 

There  was  Douai,  for  instance.  When  the  victo- 
rious Allies  had  entered  it,  the  city  was  ablaze,  as 
might  have  been  expected.  The  hand  of  wilful  in- 
cendiarism had  fallen  heavily  upon  the  Cathedral,  the 
town-hall,  and  all  historic  edifices.  But  there  was  a 
worse  thing  than  this  malicious,  useless  destruction  of 
property — there  was  a  terrible  silence  in  the  ruined 
streets.  Where  were  the  people?  There  were  none. 
From  the  broken  windows,  doorways  and  cellars,  not 
a  single  human  face  looked  out.  Douai  was  as  dead 
as  Pompeii.  A  population  of  fifty  thousand  human 
creatures  had  totally  disappeared. 

In  all  his  tragic  experiences  of  war  none  had  af- 
fected him  so  deeply  as  this.  He  had  entered  con- 
quered cities  before,  but  always  there  had  been  some 
poor  remnant  left,  some  group  of  emaciated  faces  that 
kindled  at  the  approach  of  their  redeemers.  This 
vision  of  a  great  city  depopulated,  utterly  without  in- 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  35 

habitants,  swept  clean  of  all  human  life,  overwhelmed 
his  imagination.  Where  were  the  old  men  and  wo- 
men, the  infirm  and  sick,  the  children  and  the  young 
girls?  To  what  fate  had  they  been  designated? 
Under  what  circumstances  of  horror  and  cruelty  had 
they  been  driven  out  from  their  ruined  homes?  One 
had  heard  of  such  wholesale  deportations  among  the 
savage  tribes  of  Central  Africa;  but  here  was  an 
ancient  city,  treated  by  the  boastful  representatives  of 
kultur  precisely  as  a  cannibal  tribe  treats  a  collection 
of  miserable  huts  in  a  forest — O  it  was  unthinkable ! 
The  silence  of  Douai  was  the  most  awful  accusation 
of  the  Hun  that  the  imagination  could  conceive.  Not 
all  the  shrieks  and  groanings  of  a  hundred  battlefields 
was  so  charged  with  horror  as  that  awful  silence. 

The  men  who  had  wrought  this  foul  havoc  in  the 
earth  still  lived,  and  neither  defeat  nor  peace  treaties 
could  change  thier  essential  nature.  The  doctor  had 
called  Germany  a  leper  nation,  but  the  term  was  in- 
adequate and  misleading.  Leprosy  is  involuntary,  a 
misfortune  that  invokes  pity.  The  disease  of  Ger- 
many was  a  purposed  infection.  It  was  a  sedulously 
cultivated  brutality  of  spirit.  It  was  a  deliberately 
fostered  germ  of  evil.  And  it  was  not  killed  by  the 
toxin  of  defeat — nothing  was  surer  than  that.  It 
might  be  repressed,  circumscribed,  driven  inward ;  but 
it  was  still  there,  and  as  long  as  it  existed  it  was  a 
peril  to  the  entire  human  race. 

As  he  looked  on  that  benignant  sea,  over  which  the 
moon  sailed  in  placid  majesty,  he  became  suddenly 
aware  of  a  great  temptation.  It  was  the  temptation 


36  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

to  seize  on  personal  quietude  by  the  surrender  of  moral 
energy.  He  had  given  his  utmost  for  the  world :  why 
should  he  trouble  further  about  what  happened  ?  Had 
he  not  earned  rest?  And,  as  he  asked  the  question 
his  eye  caught  the  vision  of  the  long  line  of  white 
villas  and  hotels  that  fringed  that  lovely  shore.  They 
rose  among  the  flower  gardens,  against  the  soft  dark- 
ness of  pine  groves,  frail  and  exquisite  as  the  build- 
ings of  a  dream,  with  many  a  magic  casement  open- 
ing on  a  land  of  faery.  To  them  had  come,  in  those 
vanished  pre-war  days,  a  light-hearted  multitude, 
young,  gay,  enamoured  of  joy;  here  life  had  expended 
itself  in  careless  pleasure,  in  a  wild  scattering  of 
wealth,  in  delicate  lusts,  in  the  endless  fete  champetre 
of  wit  and  music  and  sailings  on  the  silver  sea.  In 
the  very  hospital  where  he  had  lain  so  long  these  gay 
throngs  had  danced  and  dined,  not  one  of  whom  had 
ever  felt  the  least  premonition  of  vast  impending 
calamity.  Why  had  they  not  felt  it?  Was  not  the 
true  reason  just  this,  that  they  had  seized  on  personal 
quietude  by  the  surrender  of  moral  energy — that  they 
had  regarded  themselves  as  absolved  from  the  im- 
mense struggle  of  the  human  race,  and  had  therefore 
lost  all  apprehension  of  those  dark  secret  tides  of  evil 
which  were  pushing  the  world  toward  war? 

And  men  had  all  been  alike — French,  Russian,  Brit- 
ish. They  had  assumed  that  society  was  static.  They 
had  believed  the  world  a  piece  of  machinery  which 
ran  itself.  It  needed  no  watchfulness.  It  certainly 
did  not  need  watchfulness  on  their  part.  They  were 
at  liberty  to  eat,  drink  and  be  merry;  and  through 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  37 

their  dulled  senses  no  warning  voice  reached  them, 
proclaiming  that  in  such  an  hour  as  they  thought  not 
their  calamity  would  come. 

Even  the  custodians  of  this  vast  world-machine  had 
been  infected  with  the  same  spirit.  Some  were  obvi- 
ously asleep  at  their  posts,  and,  when  aroused  by  some 
harsh  prophetic  voice,  denounced  the  intrusion  in 
terms  of  scornful  irony,  and  fell  asleep  again.  Was 
there  a  single  European  statesman  who  in  the  five 
years  before  the  war  had  manifested  the  least  inkling 
of  what  was  coming?  That  no  warning  ever  reached 
them  was  incredible.  They  could  not  help  knowing 
what  Germany  made  no  effort  to  conceal — her  enor- 
mous preparations  for  war,  her  growing  arrogance,  her 
boldly  published  schemes  of  world  domination,  the 
teachings  of  Treitschke  and  Bernhardi,  the  half-insane 
but  wholly  perilous  boasts  and  threats  and  vauntings 
of  the  Kaiser.  Why  had  they  not  spoken?  It  was 
not  foolish  to  suppose  that  had  they  spoken  in  definite 
terms  of  warning  against  the  growing  German  peril, 
Germany  might  have  turned  back  from  her  fatal  path ; 
or,  at  least,  Europe  might  have  been  prepared  for  the 
certain  death-grapple.  Political  incompetence  might 
be  justly  charged  these  betrayers  of  the  peoples. 
There  was  not  one  of  them,  who,  if  strict  justice  were 
done,  did  not  deserve  to  be  publicly  arraigned  and 
publicly  executed  with  every  circumstance  of  infamy. 
But  behind  this  political  incompetence  lay  something 
else, — the  relaxation  of  moral  energy.  They  were 
not  in  earnest.  They  were  not  devoted  to  justice. 
They  sought  as  the  chief  thing,  if  not  their  own 


38  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

quietude,  their  own  advantage,  and  as  a  result  were 
infected  with  the  same  moral  debility  which  character- 
ised all  these  thoughtless  throngs  that  had  once  dined 
and  danced  and  lusted  in  these  splendid  rooms  which 
were  presently  to  be  inhabited  by  pale  crowds  of 
diseased,  maimed  and  broken  men  who  were  the  vic- 
tims of  their  folly. 

And  it  would  be  so  again,  if  the  war  failed  to  create 
a  new  moral  spirit  in  men.  The  mass  of  men  soon 
forget.  The  poor  housewife  would  forget  the  bitter- 
ness of  her  grudge  against  Germany  when  she  found 
she  could  buy  German  china  at  a  cheaper  rate  than 
British  or  American;  personal  advantage  constantly 
triumphed  over  wide  ethical  conceptions.  The  mass 
of  men  preferred  ease  to  justice.  They  naturally 
sought  the  path  that  imposed  the  least  inconvenience. 
But  that  path  led  inevitably  to  just  such  a  disaster  as 
had  overwhelmed  the  world  and  had  slain  twenty  mil- 
lion human  creatures.  What  it  all  came  to,  whether 
in  the  bargain-hunter  or  the  dilettante  statesman,  was 
that  the  pursuit  of  the  personal  life  by  the  surrender 
of  moral  passion  could  end  in  nothing  but  disaster. 

He  had  done  his  part,  he  had  earned  his  rest — no, 
he  must  never  say  that.  No  man  had  done  his  part 
while  he  still  lived  in  a  world  where  right  and  brave 
things  needed  doing.  If  the  millions  of  men  who, 
like  himself,  had  sounded  the  whole  gamut  of  the 
heroic  life,  were  to  return  to  the  world  with  that  spirit, 
they  would  not  be  a  cleansing  salt  to  save  the  world, 
but  a  deadly  poison  to  corrupt  it. 

One  thing  came  to  him  with  singular  clearness  in 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  39 

this  hour  of  reflection — the  world  had  been  miracu- 
lously re-created  by  its  agony,  it  had  been  given  a  new 
chance.  It  had  been  cleansed  and  transformed  by  a 
passion  for  justice.  After  making  due  allowance  for 
all  the  mixed  and  personal  motives  which  had  led 
millions  of  men  like  himself  to  become  soldiers,  he 
saw  that  the  great  shaping  force  had  been  this  pas- 
sion for  justice.  That  was  really  the  source  of  all 
the  fierce  hatred  of  Germany  which  filled  his  heart. 
It  was  clean  fire,  righteous  anger,  holy  hatred.  If  he 
had  not  hated  the  brute  who  had  shot  young  Adair  he 
would  have  been  morally  emasculate.  If  he  had  not 
felt  a  rage  of  undying  flame  pass  through  him  as  he 
stood  in  the  tragic  silence  of  depopulated  Douai,  he 
would  have  had  no  right  to  be  there  at  all.  Not  to 
hate  wrong  with  all  one's  strength  was  not  to  love  right 
with  any  true  steadfastness.  The  world  before  the 
war  had  lost  the  power  of  hatred.  It  was  submerged 
in  a  sloppy  tepid  tide  of  pacificism.  It  had  rubbed 
out  the  lines  between  right  and  wrong,  become  wick- 
edly amiable  to  vice,  had  made  boast  of  a  slushy  tol- 
erance which  was  the  ambiguous  cover  of  moral 
nakedness.  It  had  been  saved  suddenly,  miraculously, 
by  being  confronted  with  the  true  nature  of  evil.  It 
had  been  purged  by  moral  horror.  And  whether  or 
no  this  conversion  was  transient  or  permanent  would 
depend  on  the  capacity  of  men  to  retain  their  horror 
of  evil.  In  other  words,  it  would  depend  on  their 
power  of  hatred.  If  they  lost  that  power,  the  world 
would  once  more  begin  to  slide  down  into  the  mire 
of  complacency)  until  at  last  some  new  and  vaster 


40  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

catastrophe  overwhelmed  it,  until  perhaps  God  Him- 
self flung  the  world  from  Him,  in  fierce  resentment 
and  impatience,  and  closed  the  book  of  Time  with  the 
damning  sentence — "Let  him  that  is  unholy  be  un- 
holy still." 

m 

He  was  reminded  of  a  trivial  episode  of  his  boy- 
hood. He  had  thoughtlessly  kicked  apart  an  ant- 
heap,  entirely  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  the  little 
brown  pile  of  earth  was  a  metropolitan  city,  with 
a  thousand  streets  and  subways,  in  which  the  or- 
dered, congregated  lives  of  a  thousand  small 
inhabitants  fulfilled  themselves.  He  looked  into 
this  uncovered  metropolis  with  curiosity,  wonder,  and 
compunction,  for  he  saw  all  these  tiny  creatures  in- 
stantly mobilised  for  the  reconstruction  of  their  city. 
They  ran  hither  and  thither  carrying  the  white  eggs 
that  held  the  life  of  the  future,  they  were  obviously 
organised,  they  faced  their  inexplicable  disaster  with 
an  amazing  courage.  There  was  no  miracle  to  help 
them,  no  God  to  interfere  in  their  behalf.  They  ac- 
cepted instantly  the  overwhelming  task  of  rebuilding 
their  ruined  city,  urged  onward  by  that  obscure  in- 
stinct of  living  which  was  the  master  motive  of  all 
life. 

The  same  instinct  lay  at  the  root  of  all  human  exist- 
ence. Man  was  driven  on  relentlessly  by  the  per- 
sistent need  of  living.  How  many  times  had  he  re- 
turned after  the  ravages  of  war  to  plough  afresh  his 
desolated  lands,  to  collect  the  scattered  stones  of  his 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  41 

temples,  to  build  new  Romes  over  the  smoking  ashes 
of  Romes  destroyed,  new  Jerusalems  over  the  piles  of 
rubbish  that  covered  the  streets  where  his  fathers 
dwelt  and  the  shrines  at  which  they  worshipped  ?  And 
he  would  do  so  again.  The  Past  could  never  be  re- 
stored, but  there  was  always  a  Future  which  might 
arise  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Past. 

"Will  it  be  rebuilt  upon  the  same  pattern  ?"  the  doc- 
tor had  asked.  The  question  cut  deep.  And  if  the 
reconstruction  of  society  was  to  be  upon  a  new  pat- 
tern, wiser,  stronger,  more  efficient  and  enduring, 
who  were  to  be  the  builders  and  the  architects  ?  Clearly 
they  must  be  men  of  a  new  order  of  intelligence,  gov- 
erned by  a  new  set  of  ideals.  Where  were  these 
builders  of  the  future  to  be  found?  He  meditated 
that  question  in  silence  and  for  a  long  time.  The 
divine  gravity  of  the  brooding  night  lay  round  him, 
the  moon-washed  sea  was  like  a  field  of  light;  a  soft 
wind  moved  among  the  trees,  and  there  was  a  sense 
of  some  living  intelligence  that  vibrated  through  these 
sights  and  sounds.  It  seemed  as  though  the  Night 
was  trying  to  say  something,  to  communicate  wisdom 
— as  if  the  kindly- faced  moon  stooped  down,  shaping 
silver  lips  to  a  whispered  confidence — as  if  God  passed 
along  the  high  galleries  of  blue  firmament  with  a 
rustle  of  silk  robes,  a  scarce  perceptible  footfall,  an 
evocation  of  wordless  music. 

And  then,  upon  that  field  of  light,  that  shining  plain 
of  sea,  he  thought  he  saw  something — a  rippling 
movement,  millions  of  ripples  dark  in  the  hollows  and 
light  at  the  edge;  they  moved  in  an  ordered  rhythm, 


£2  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

they  had  a  strange  cohesion  and  were  gathered  into 
distinct  emerging  shapes. 

Ah,  now  he  recognised  them — they  were  the  shining 
helmets  of  an  army;  they  were  glittering  bayonets  and 
guns  and  flags  and  far-flung  banners,  and  wheels  in 
motion,  and  horses  stepping  proudly,  and  exalted 
figures  lifting  beckoning  and  commanding  hands,  and 
musicians  with  soundless  trumpets  at  their  lips,  and 
lads  that  beat  on  silent  drums.  They  were  the  armies 
of  the  dead,  the  men  of  Mons  and  of  the  Marne,  the 
trodden  flesh  of  Flanders'  fields  reassembled,  wearing 
their  wounds  like  crimson  decorations,  carrying  their 
mutilations  like  badges  of  honour  pinned  upon  their 
breasts  by  the  hand  of  God,  with  an  air  of  solemn 
pride.  He  thought  he  could  recognise  some  of  them, 
comrades  who  had  once  jested  and  suffered  with  him, 
the  vanished  gunners  of  his  own  battery,  the  beloved 
commander  whose  voice  he  had  last  heard  broken  with 
anguish  as  the  surgeon  cut  away  his  shattered  right 
arm  under  the  blazing  lights  in  the  base  hospital. 
They  filed  past  endlessly  upon  that  shining  plain  of 
sea,  and  as  they  passed  it  seemed  their  eyes  sought  his. 
Ah,  what  quiet  wisdom  was  in  those  eyes;  they  were 
calm  as  mountain  pools,  and  of  an  infinite  depth. 
What  was  it  that  they  tried  to  say?  And,  as  he 
strained  forward,  listening,  he  thought  he  heard  their 
message. 

"We  are  the  dead,  but  the  cause  for  which  we  died 
is  not  yet  won.  Not  until  justice  reigns  through  all 
the  earth  will  that  cause  be  won.  Justice  for  the 
humblest  toiler  as  well  as  for  the  humblest  nation. 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  43 

The  Justice  that  is  fierce  and  kind,  terrible  and  be- 
nignant, ruthless  and  merciful,  the  light  that  ripens  the 
poor  man's  harvest  and  the  lightning  that  slays  the 
poor  man's  oppressor — God's  justice!  For  that  we 
died ;  for  that  you  must  live,  or  we  shall  have  died  in 
vain.  Peace  in  itself  is  but  a  vain  thing.  Peace  is 
but  the  bye-product  of  righteousness.  Wherefore 
seek  not  peace,  but  righteousness — that  is  the  chief 
thing,  and  the  only  foundation  on  which  a  new  world 
can  be  built." 

He  sprang  to  his  feet,  quivering  with  the  intense 
emotion  wrought  in  him  by  the  vision. 

"Ah,  I  see  it  now,"  he  cried.  "This  is  a  Soldier's 
World.  It  must  be  saved  by  soldiers.  They  alone 
have  the  power,  the  vision ;  they  alone  feel  the  urge  of 
the  Ideal.  They  must  replace  the  politician,  the  aca- 
demic statesman,  the  bargainer  in  human  destinies — 
their  day  is  done.  God's  hand  has  swept  them  from 
their  seats;  God's  voice  calls  a  nobler  breed  to  take 
their  places — the  Soldiers,  who,  having  given  all  for 
liberty  and  justice,  are  the  only  men  who  can  establish 
them  firmly  on  the  earth." 

The  Vision  sank  into  the  sea,  fragile  as  a  sunset 
apocalypse,  but  it  had  entered  the  mind  of  John 
Chalmers  and  was  to  prove  inextinguishable.  New 
thoughts  came  to  men  in  various  ways,  and  a  moon- 
light hour  of  self  investigation  by  the  sea  may  be  as 
real  a  medium  of  a  divine  message  as  Paul's  vision  on 
the  Damascus  road  or  John's  from  the  lonely  rock  of 
Patmos.  Through  the  broken  webs  of  consciousness 
Chalmers  had  sought  earnestly  for  the  true  clue  of  life. 


44  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

He  had  to  go  on  living;  that  was  the  mandate  of  the 
Powers.  A  new  sweetness  of  health  was  already 
flooding  his  veins,  and  his  miraculous  escape  from 
death  was  the  signal  to  him  that  he  must  not  allow 
his  life  to  be  re-absorbed  into  the  colourless  average  of 
human  lives. 

What  he  recognised  as  a  personal  peril  he  also 
recognised  as  a  general  peril.  Millions  of  men,  the 
very  flower  of  the  race,  were  returning  to  the  beaten 
paths  of  normal  existence;  were  they  to  be  ignomini- 
ously  re-absorbed  into  the  grey  average?  They  had 
known  exaltations,  agonies,  sacrifices,  high  hours  of 
self -surrender,  the  passion  of  virtue  enraged;  and  in 
this  new  spirit  which  they  had  won,  was  a  dynamic 
sufficient  to  lift  the  whole  world  to  a  new  plane  of 
effort.  Here  was  a  force  suddenly  withdrawn  from 
the  objects  which  had  evoked  it.  To  waste  it,  or 
allow  it  to  waste  itself,  would  be  an  incalculable  crime. 

A  Soldier's  World  meant  that  the  Soldiers'  spirit 
must  rule  the  world.  It  was  the  spirit  of  unselfish 
combination  as  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  selfish  individ- 
ualism, the  spirit  of  ordered  confederation  for  the 
common  good,  the  spirit  of  constructive  idealism  tri- 
umphing over  personal  hopes  and  fears  and  ambitions. 

He  himself  was  much  too  modest  and  simple  a  man 
to  suppose  himself  specially  designated  for  any  con- 
spicuous part  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  world.  But 
he  felt  that  at  least  it  was  his  obvious  duty  to  justify 
his  existence,  and  how  could  he  better  justify  it  than 
by  doing  his  humble  part  to  prevent  the  world  from 
slipping  back  into  the  old  ruts  which  led  to  disaster? 


RETROSPECT  AND  VISION  45 

And  if  every  man  returning  from  the  wars,  brought 
with  him  the  same  resolution,  who  could  doubt  that  a 
new  force  would  enter  the  world  which  might  shape 
events,  and  refashion  all  human  action  in  such  a  way 
that  a  golden  age  of  human  happiness — that  long  post- 
poned and  much  derided  dream — might  become  a 
recognisable  reality? 


CHAPTER  III 
LONDON 


THE  time  came  at  last  when  even  Dr.  Dean  was 
satisfied  that  his  patient  was  cured.  The  moist  Devon 
air,  fresh  with  the  odour  of  the  sea  and  soft  as  a 
caress,  had  done  wonders.  He  found  himself  curi- 
ously unwilling  to  leave  Devon.  His  unwillingness 
was  in  large  part  the  reluctance  which  every  convales- 
cent has  to  go  out  again  into  the  tumultuous  and  shel- 
terless world  of  men.  But  deeper  than  this  was  a 
genuine  affection  for  the  gracious  land  itself,  with 
its  gently  rounded  hills,  its  flowering  hedges,  its  old 
farm-houses,  its  aspect  of  secular  stability  and  beauty. 

It  pleased  him  beyond  measure  one  day  to  find  in 
an  old  church  to  which  the  doctor  had  motored  him 
a  memorial  tablet  which  bore  the  name  of  Chalmers. 

"I  thought  you  would  like  to  see  it,"  said  the  doc- 
tor. "I  can't  tell  you  anything  about  it.  Chalmers 
isn't  a  Devon  name,  it's  Scotch.  But  as  you  see  by 
the  tablet  there  was  a  family  of  Chalmers  here  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years." 

Father  Bennett,  an  old  white-haired  clergyman, 
showed  them  round  the  church.  He  was  reading  the 

46 


LONDON  47 

daily  service  when  they  arrived,  to  a  congregation  of 
four  persons,  three  old  women  from  an  adjacent  alms- 
house,  and  a  bent,  crooked  old  labourer,  long  past 
work.  The  church  was  very  ancient,  with  a  fine  win- 
dow of  stained  glass  above  the  altar,  and  in  the  south 
transept  a  marble  tomb,  on  which,  as  on  a  bed  of 
honour,  lay  the  effigy  of  a  Knight  Templar.  In  the 
north  transept  was  a  monument  to  his  wife.  She  lay 
with  folded  hands,  and  her  children  knelt  round  her 
in  the  attitude  of  prayer.  On  the  wall  to  her  left 
were  tablets  which  bore  the  names  of  Fulkes,  Lydes 
and  Bullers — all  old  Devonshire  names,  and  among 
them  the  Georgian  tablet,  with  the  group  of  winged 
childish  heads,  which  bore  the  name  of  Chalmers. 

There  was  something  impressively  pathetic  in  the 
sound  of  the  clergyman's  voice,  reading  the  ancient 
prayers  of  his  faith  in  this  place  where  the  dead  so 
greatly  outnumbered  the  living.  Chalmers  could  not 
forbear  a  comment  on  the  scantness  of  the  living  con- 
gregation, to  which  Father  Bennett  replied,  "But  you 
know  I'm  not  reading  prayers  only  to  the  congrega- 
tion you  see.  I  am  reading  prayers  to  eight  centuries. 
I  always  feel  that  I  have  a  crowded  church — crowded 
with  the  spirits  of  the  past,  I  mean." 

"Have  you  been  here  long?"  asked  Chalmers. 

"Fifty  years.  I  came  here  as  a  young  man  fresh 
from  Oxford.  I've  never  wished  to  go  away." 

"Can  you  tell  me  anything  about  this  monument  to 
the  Chalmers,"  he  asked.  "My  name  is  Chalmers, 
you  know." 

"Nothing  beyond  the  bare   fact  that  the   family 


48  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

owned  the  Hintock  property  for  a  hundred  years. 
The  last  Chalmers  died  in  1789.  He  left  no  issue, 
and  the  estate  passed  by  purchase  to  the  Fulkes.  And 
so  you  are  an  American  ?  But  I  notice  you  don't  wear 
the  American  uniform." 

"No,  I  joined  up  with  the  Canadians  before  Amer- 
ica came  into  the  war." 

"Well,  we're  all  one  now,  aren't  we?  At  least,  I 
hope  we  are.  It  seems  to  me  the  best  result  of  the 
war  so  far  is  this  real  union  of  America  and  England 
— in  which,  I  include  of  course  the  whole  British 
Empire.  But  the  war  has  brought  many  changes,  and 
I  sometimes  fear  England  will  never  be  the  same 
again." 

"You  mean  she  has  paid  a  tremendous  price  for 
victory?" 

"That,  of  course.  All  the  young  men  went  from 
my  parish  in  the  first  year.  I'm  proud  to  say  that 
when  conscription  came  there  was  no  one  here  to  take. 
They'd  all  gone.  Alas,  most  of  them  are  dead,  and 
many  are  maimed.  Two  of  my  grandsons  are  among 
the  dead." 

He  lifted  his  biretta  solemnly,  as  if  in  salutation  to 
the  dead,  and  continued. 

"No,  I  fear  England  will  never  be  the  same  again. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  war  I  hoped  and  believed 
that  men's  thoughts  would  turn  anew  to  the  Church. 
It  seemed  natural  to  expect  it.  Men's  minds  were 
solemnised.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  that  wave  of 
emotion  has  long  ago  subsided.  People  have  got  used 
to  the  thought  of  death,  not  in  the  way  that  makes  the 


LONDON  49 

soul  turn  to  its  Maker,  but  as  an  incentive  to  grasp 
eagerly  at  the  passing  satisfactions  of  the  flesh.  I 
can  make  allowances,  many  allowances.  I  hope  that 
I  am  not  uncharitable.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  every 
one  to-day  is  going  with  a  looser  rein.  It's  so  even 
in  this  little  village  of  Hintock.  The  spirit  of  re- 
straint has  gone,  and  the  people  are  no  longer  looking 
to  the  Church  for  guidance." 

"Did  they  ever  look  to  it  for  guidance?"  inter- 
polated Dr.  Dean  contentiously. 

"Ah,  doctor,  I  know  your  views,  and  you  know 
mine.  We  have  discussed  them  more  than  once,  but 
I  think,  if  you  will  allow  me,  we  won't  discuss  them 
now.  I  don't  think  your  friend  would  be  profited  by 
our  contention." 

He  spoke  with  a  quiet  smiling  dignity. 

"I'm  an  old  man,  doctor,  and  I  should  like  to  die 
in  the  faiths  which  have  consoled  me  for  fifty  years. 
You  are  wiser  than  me  in  many  ways,  but  I  must 
still  cling  to  the  wisdom  which  assures  me  that  with- 
out a  true  knowledge  of  God  no  nation  can  be  truly 
great.  And  the  Church  is  surely  the  divine  custodian 
of  that  knowledge." 

They  moved  out  of  the  beautiful  dim  church  into 
the  green  churchyard.  Deep  woods  surrounded  it,  in 
which  the  cooing  of  doves  was  heard.  The  air  was 
fragrant  with  violets  and  hawthorn.  To  the  right 
of  the  graveyard  was  the  gabled  almshouse,  where 
the  old  women  stood  in  the  doorways  gazing  vacantly 
across  the  familiar  scene.  It  was  difficult  to  imagine 
war  in  this  green  nest  of  immemorial  quiet.  Yet 


50  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

from  these  humble  thatched  cottages,  which  showed! 
here  and  there  through  the  trees,  men  had  gone  who 
had  done  deeds  worthy  to  be  matched  with  the  most 
valorous  of  the  old  Knight  Templar  who  slept  im- 
mutable under  the  coloured  light  of  the  transept  win- 
dow. Perhaps  Chalmers  had  met  them  without 
knowing  where  they  came  from.  He  recalled  the 
British  soldiers  by  whose  side  he  had  fought  in  the 
last  great  weeks  before  he  fell,  men  of  Devon  and 
Lancashire,  indefatigably  cheerful,  calmly  stubborn, 
unconsciously  heroic,  masters  of  a  jesting  virtue,  pro- 
fanely pious,  unseriously  serious — strange  to  think 
how  many  of  them  had  come  from  places  like  Hintock. 
Yes,  he  had  known  them,  as  men  knew  one  another 
from  whom  death  strips  all  disguises;  and,  knowing1 
them,  he  felt  that  he  had  known  England — not  the 
superficial  England  misunderstood  by  the  casual  trans- 
Atlantic  visitor,  but  the  deep-hearted  England,  nour- 
ished by  centuries  of  patriotic  valour,  whose  ultimate 
faith  is  Cromwell,  whose  final  voice  is  Shakespeare. 

And  it  pleased  him,  too,  to  think  that  the  Chalmers 
who  had  once  owned  the  Hintock  estate  might  pos- 
sibly be  a  distant  ancestor.  As  he  looked  at  the  grey 
church,  the  old  almshouse,  the  deep  woods,  he  had  an 
unvanquishable  sense  of  something  dear  and  familiar 
in  the  scene.  It  was  as  though  obscure  ancestral 
memories  stirred  his  blood,  buried  instincts  of  posses- 
sion— the  very  marrow  of  his  bones  recognised  the 
primal  earth  from  which  his  flesh  was  fashioned.  And 
even  if  this  was  but  an  imagined  reminiscence,  he 
knew  that  he  was  one  with  England  now  by  another 


LONDON  51 

and  a  deeper  bond,  by  shared  experiences,  common 
ardours,  hopes,  faiths,  perils,  sufferings.  And  he 
felt,  with  Father  Bennett,  that  whatever  bitter  things 
the  war  had  wrought,  it  would  not  have  been  in  vain, 
if  its  issue  was  to  bind  together  in  a  more  real  com- 
munity of  thought  and  feeling  Great  Britain  and 
America. 

"What  a  splendid  old  man,"  said  Chalmers,  as  they 
drove  away. 

"Yes,"  said  the  doctor,  "I've  really  a  great  affec- 
tion for  him,  though  in  our  thinking  we  are  hemi- 
spheres apart.  He  is  one  of  the  most  learned  men  in 
the  English  Church,  especially  in  patristic  literature — 
a  true  Newmanite,  but  with  a  humble  saintliness  which 
Newman  never  had.  It  is  for  his  saintliness  I  love 
him,  but  his  mind  lives  altogether  among  the  dead 
centuries." 

"It  seems  to  me  a  wonderful  thing  that  such  a  man 
should  be  content  to  bury  himself  in  a  little  place  like 
Hintock.  I  was  struck  by  what  he  said  about  having 
come  to  it  fresh  from  Oxford  and  never  wishing  to 
leave  it." 

"That's  both  his  strength  and  his  weakness,"  said 
the  doctor.  "In  a  sense  it  is  both  the  strength  and 
weakness  of  the  English  Church.  Men  like  Bennett 
are  perfectly  content  to  feel  that  they  are  administer- 
ing a  great  organisation,  even  though  it  be  in  the 
humblest  capacity.  It's  the  Jesuit  ideal — the  only 
noble  thing  about  Jesuitism.  But  this  excessive  hu- 
mility stunts  the  mind.  It  forbids  growth,  it's  hos- 
tile* to  what  appears  to  outsiders  a  right  relation  be- 


52  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

tvreen  ability  and  occupation.  I've  no  patience  with 
it  I  feel  about  it  just  as  I  should  about  a  first-rate 
surgeon  who  chose  to  shut  himself  up  in  a  remote 
hamlet  and  refused  to  come  out  No  man  has  a 
right  to  waste  himself,  especially  in  times  like  these." 

"He  didn't  speak  very  hopefully  about  the  times, 
did  he?" 

"No,  and  in  that  respect  he  showed  more  appre- 
ciation of  modern  conditions  than  he  usually  does. 
He's  perfectly  right  when  he  says  the  spirit  of  re- 
straint is  gone.  We  doctors  know  it.  It's  not  our 
business  to  talk  of  it  The  less  said  about  it  the  bet- 
ter. A  high  emotional  strain  is  always  a  provocation 
to  sensuality.  Every  one  in  these  parts  knows  that 
religious  revivalism  is  always  marked  by  a  fine  after- 
math of  illegitimacy.  The  war  with  its  tremendous 
emotional  strain  has  produced  similar  results,  but  upon 
a  much  larger  scale.  The  point  where  Bennett  is 
wrong  is  in  thinking  that  the  Church  can  control  this 
new  license.  It  can't  It  isn't  masculine  enough. 
Bennett  is  utterly  wrong  in  imagining  that  the  tre- 
mendous realities  of  the  war  will  drive  men  to  the 
Church.  England  is  much  more  likely  to  become  a 
nation  of  freethinkers." 

They  were  passing  through  a  lovely  country  of  red 
earth  and  lofty  trees  which  looked  almost  blue-black 
against  the  luminous  grey  of  the  sky.  The  road  ran 
beside  a  park,  where  many  trees  had  been  felled.  A 
clear  trout  stream  flowed  through  it,  and  on  a  gentle 
eminence  rose  a  gabled  house  of  yellowish  freestone. 

"That's  Hintock  House,"  said  the  doctor.     "The 


LONDON  53 

place  where  your  ancestor  lived,  if  he  was  your  an- 
cestor. The  Fulkes  have  it  now.  Alas,  there's  only 
one  of  them  left,  and  he's  maimed  for  life.  The 
chances  are  that  the  estate  will  be  sold  again  before 
long.  It'll  probably  be  bought  by  some  rich  profiteer. 
That's  the  kind  of  beast  who  will  presently  gobble  up 
all  the  ancient  estates  of  England.  Unless,  as  seems 
likely,  they're  cut  up  for  potato  fields  and  destroyed 
in  the  interests  of  national  utility." 

He  spoke  with  a  caustic  bitterness,  beneath  which 
deep  emotion  was  discernible. 

"Do  you  really  mean  that?"  said  Chalmers. 

"I  sometimes  think  I  do,"  he  replied  sadly.  "Man 
and  boy  I've  lived  here  for  fifty  years.  I've  guddled 
trout  in  that  stream  and  poached  pheasants  in  yonder 
coppice.  I've  felt  a  kind  of  personal  pride  in  those 
great  parks  and  old  houses.  It's  said  that  Raleigh 
visited  at  Hintock  House  and  Grenville  slept  there 
during  the  weeks  before  the  Armada  was  sighted.  I 
never  pass  beautiful  places  like  Hintock  Park  now 
without  saying  to  myself,  "Look  well  at  it,  for  it's 
doomed.  All  the  chivalrous  and  stately  life  that  has 
gone  on  there  is  coming  to  an  end.  The  Fulkes  and 
the  Raleighs  and  the  Grenvilles  will  mean  nothing  to 
this  new  generation.  The  old  England  is  dead.  The 
new  England  will  be  wholly  utilitarian,  and  will  per- 
mit no  romance  to  interfere  with  its  utilitarianism.' ' 

"Is  it  really  as  bad  as  that?"  asked  Chalmers  with  a 
smile. 

"I  fear  so.     Be  thankful  you're  just  in  time  to  see 


54 

the  old  England.  If  you  should  come  again  in  twenty 
years  you  won't  find  a  trace  of  it." 

Beyond  Hintock  Park  they  climbed  a  steep  hill, 
from  which  the  sea  was  visible,  and  a  little  travelling 
tuft  of  white  smoke  which  indicated  a  passing  train. 

"The  afternoon  express  for  London."  said  the  doc- 
tor. 

"When  shall  I  be  able  to  go  to  London,  doctor?" 

"Do  you  want  to  go?" 

"I  must  go.     My  reason  is  very  prosaic — clothes." 

"I  wouldn't  stay  there  very  long,  if  I  were  you. 
The  less  you  see  of  cities  and  the  more  you  live  in  the 
country  for  some  months  to  come  the  better  for  you. 
Besides,  London's  rather  depressing  just  now.  It's 
like  a  man  waking  after  opiates,  very  shaky  and  of 
uncertain  temper." 

"Nevertheless,  I  wouldn't  like  to  sail  home  without 
seeing  it  once  more.  It's  grown  dear  to  me.  The 
most  vivid  memory  which  many  of  us  will  carry  home 
with  us  is  of  London  in  the  dark  days  of  1917,  stub- 
bornly joyous  and  refusing  to  acknowledge  the  possi- 
bility of  defeat." 

"You  speak  more  like  an  Englishman  than  an 
American,"  said  the  doctor,  with  a  quizzical  glance. 

"I've  a  right  to.  Haven't  I  a  supposititious  an- 
cestor, with  a  mural  tablet  in  Hintock  Church?" 

"Well,  the  truth  is  I  don't  want  to  lose  you.  But 
if  you  are  set  on  going  to  London,  I  think  you  can  go 
next  week.  Don't  forget  me  altogether  when  you're 
gone." 


LONDON  53 

"I'm  not  likely  to  do  that,  doctor,  I  owe  you  too 
much." 

"There's  nothing  men  are  so  willing  to  forget  as 
their  debts,"  was  the  doctor's  ironical  reply. 


A  week  later  Chalmers  said  farewell  to  the  hospital 
The  doctor  motored  him  to  the  station,  and  there  were 
tears  in  his  eyes  as  they  parted.  His  farewell  gift 
to  Chalmers  was  a  basket  containing  an  elaborate 
lunch. 

"You  can  get  nothing  on  the  train,"  he  said  apolo- 
getically. "We  haven't  yet  got  back  to  the  happy  age 
of  dining-cars." 

The  train  was  crowded.  A  big  steamer  had  dis- 
charged her  passengers  at  Plymouth.  Three  Red 
Cross  nurses  returning  from  Paris,  two  young  naval 
lieutenants  from  Malta,  and  a  long-bearded,  sad-faced 
elderly  civilian  shared  the  compartment.  As  the  train 
sped  Londonwards  through  the  Devon  landscape,  the 
young  lieutenants  were  wild  with  boyish  pleasure. 
They  ran  from  side  to  side  of  the  compartment,  look- 
ing out  of  the  windows,  calling  each  other's  attention 
to  the  towers  of  old  grey  churches,  the  tall  elms  under 
which  the  red  cattle  stood,  the  tiny  watercourses,  the 
snug  farmhouses,  the  orchards  and  the  gardens. 

"By  Jove,  there  are  sheep,"  cried  one,  "real  sheep." 

They  apologised  for  their  excitement  with  the  re- 
mark that  it  was  three  years  since  they  had  seen  Eng- 
land. 


56  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

The  Red  Cross  nurses  smiled  gravely.  There  were 
tears  in  their  eyes. 

"It  feels  like  being  born  again  to  come  back  and 
find  everything  as  you  left  it,"  said  one. 

The  conversation  became  general. 

"Beastly  place,  Malta,"  said  one  of  the  young  lieu- 
tenants in  reply  to  an  enquiry  from  Chalmers.  "It's 
all  heat,  dust,  flies,  and  a  fair  chance  of  fever.  Worst 
of  all,  nothing  doing  that's  worth  while." 

The  other  became  more  explicit.  He  explained 
that  they  belonged  to  the  Motor  Boat  Patrol.  The 
Patrol  was  the  eyes  and  brooms  of  the  Navy.  Every 
day  the  tiny  boats  put  to  sea,  scoured  the  nooks  and 
crannies  of  the  coast  with  patient  assiduity,  destroyed 
floating  mines,  rescued  torpedoed  crews  and  kept  gen- 
eral watch  and  guard  over  the  Grand  Fleet. 

They  recognised  nothing  perilous  in  these  pursuits. 
Before  they  were  transferred  to  Malta  they  had  been 
at  Scapa  Flow,  a  God-forsaken  rock  amid  wild  tumb- 
ling seas,  treacherous  tides  and  whirlpools,  the  true 
Ultima  Thule.  They  had  driven  their  tiny  boats 
through  mountainous  seas,  drenched  to  the  skin  by 
sleet  and  spray,  their  very  clothes  mildewed  with  in- 
cessant damp,  their  rough  food  poisoned  with  gaso- 
lene. They  had  done  much  of  their  work  at  night, 
along  an  iron  coast,  storm-swept  and  full  of  rocks, 
from  which  all  buoys  and  lights  had  been  removed. 
But  they  preferred  the  Hebrides  to  Malta,  because  at 
Malta  there  "was  nothing  doing." 

"I  suppose  you  were  at  the  Front,  Sir?"  said  one 
of  them,  addressing  Chalmers. 


LONDON  57 

"Yes,  I  had  three  years  of  it.  I'm  just  out  of 
hospital." 

The  nurses  looked  at  him  with  professional  interest 

"You  are  quite  recovered?" 

"I  believe  so.  Shell-shock,  and  some  other  things, 
you  know." 

"I  wish  I'd  been  at  the  Front  instead  of  with  the 
M.L.'s,"  said  one  of  the  lieutenants  gloomily. 

"You'll  have  all  sorts  of  splendid  things  to  remem- 
ber and  tell  about  We've  nothing." 

The  sad-faced,  long-bearded  man  turned  himself, 
and  said  quietly,  "My  son  was  at  the  Front  He's 
dead.  He  was  my  only  son." 

He  swallowed  hard  and  looked  at  Chalmers. 

"His  name  was  Hector  Bainbridge.  Captain  Hec- 
tor Bainbridge  of  the  Canadian  Field  Artillery.  Did 
you  ever  meet  him,  Sir  ?" 

Chalmers  shook  his  head. 

"I  hardly  thought  you  would  have  met  him.  But  I 
go  on  asking  everyone  because  you  see  I  don't  really 
know  what  became  of  him.  He  was  reported  missing 
after  the  fight  at  Drocourt" 

"Then  he  may  be  alive  after  all." 

"The  War  Office  says  no.  They've  told  me  that  no 
doubt  he  is  dead — died  in  such  a  way  that  there  was 
nothing  left  of  him  that  anyone  could  recognise. 
When  it  happens  like  that  they  report  a  man  missing." 

The  man's  face  suddenly  hardened,  and  his  eyes  be- 
came intense  and  fanatical. 

"I  am  a  hater  of  war,"  he  said.  "I  don't  believe  it 
necessary.  This  war  needn't  have  happened  if  the 


58  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

statesmen  had  been  wise  in  time.  They  weren't  wise. 
They  let  things  drift.  Old  men  made  the  war,  and 
the  young  men  have  paid  for  it  with  their  lives. 
There's  a  poem  of  Kipling's  you  may  recollect  It  has 
this  line,  'But  who  shall  return  us  our  children  ?'  Kip- 
ling's own  son  was  reported  missing — he  was  his  only 
son.  I  ask  you  to  forgive  me,  gentlemen,  and  not  to 
think  that  I  don't  appreciate  all  you've  done  for  us. 
But  just  the  same  it  makes  me  sick  to  hear  you  talk- 
ing as  if  war  were  just  a  splendid  game.  It  isn't. 
It's  the  murder  of  young  men  to  atone  for  the  follies 
of  old  men.  And  God  will  yet  judge  the  murderers 
and  punish  them.  At  least  I  hope  and  pray  that  He 
may." 

He  sank  back  in  his  seat,  trembling  with  the  vio- 
lence of  his  emotion. 

One  of  the  nurses  laid  her  hand  upon  his  arm. 

"The  old  men  have  paid  for  their  unwisdom,"  she 
said  quietly.  "They  also  have  lost  their  sons.  Don't 
you  think  we  should  forgive  them?" 

But  he  only  muttered  to  himself  the  lines  of  Kip- 
ling's : 

"They  bought  us  anew  with  their  blood,  forbearing  to  blame  us, 
Those  hours  which  we  had  not  made  good  when  the  Judgment 
o'ercame  us. 

But  who  shall  return  us  our  children?" 

The  indignant  flame  died  out  of  his  eyes,  and  pres- 
ently he  began  to  speak  more  quietly.  It  seemed  he 
was  returning  from  France,  after  a  fruitless  search  for 
news  about  his  dead  son.  He  had  been  permitted  to 
visit  the  battlefields,  to  inspect  the  cemeteries,  to  wan- 


LONDON  -59 

der  among  the  tens  of  thousands  of  white  crosses  on 
lonely  hillsides,  but  he  had  found  no  trace  of  his  son. 
His  son  had  disappeared  as  completely  as  a  broken 
bubble  on  the  sea.  And  from  the  pilgrimage  of  grief 
he  had  returned  with  a  great  horror  filling  his  mind. 

"I  used  to  read  the  daily  casualty  list  like  other  peo- 
ple," he  said,  "but  I  never  grasped  what  it  meant 
You  know  the  old  words  of  the  Psalm,  'A  thousand 
shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand  at  thy  right 
hand,  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee.'  That's  how 
we  all  feel,  I  suppose — it  won't  come  nigh  us.  There's 
not  a  man  lying  in  those  lonely  graves  whose  mother 
or  wife  or  sweetheart  didn't  comfort  herself  with  the 
sweet  lie,  'Whoever  dies,  he  won't  die.'  Well, 
France  has  buried  a  million  and  a  half  of  her  men, 
so  they  tell  me,  and  Great  Britain  not  less  than  a  mil- 
lion. Love  and  faith  and  prayer  couldn't  protect 
them.  People  talk  now  as  if  a  new  faith  in  God 
had  been  created  by  the  war.  I  don't  believe  it 
For  millions  of  persons  like  myself  the  war  has  killed 
religious  faith.  We've  prayed  and  found  prayer  vain. 
We  shall  never  pray  again.  We  feel  that  God  has  lied 
to  us." 

The  words,  so  intensely  spoken,  created  an  uncom- 
fortable impression.  It  is  not  the  habit  of  English 
people  to  discuss  God  in  railway  carriages;  there  is 
a  sense  of  outraged  reticence,  a  kind  of  sacrilege,  in 
mentioning  God  at  all  in  ordinary  conversation.  The 
young  lieutenants  squirmed  visibly  at  the  name  of 
God.  The  Red  Cross  nurses  were  flushed  and  embar- 


60  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

rassed.  Nevertheless  it  was  one  of  these  eager  boys 
who  found  his  tongue  and  made  reply. 

"O,  I  say,  you  know,  that's  not  how  we  feel  at  all. 
We  take  our  chance  of  being  'pipped/  and  don't  worry. 
I  guess  your  son  was  like  that.  He  didn't  mind  dy- 
ing— it  was  all  in  the  day's  work,  you  know,  Sir.  And 
I  rather  think  he  wouldn't  be  quite  pleased  if  he  heard 
you  making  such  a  fuss  about  it." 

"And  he  died  for  that"  said  the  Red  Cross  nurse, 
who  had  spoken  before  in  pity  of  the  old  men  who  had 
paid  their  price  of  their  unwisdom  in  the  sacrifice  of 
their  sons. 

She  pointed  to  the  fields  and  pastures,  the  orchards 
and  farmhouses  and  old  churches,  that  streamed  past 
the  clear  windows  in  a  long  frieze  of  immemorial 
beauty. 

"He  didn't  die  just  because  politicians  were  foolish 
and  statesmen  blind.  He  died  for  England.  He  died 
that  these  old  churches  should  not  be  spoliated,  and 
these  farmhouses  burned,  and  the  women  in  them 
ravished,  and  the  children  mutilated.  He  died  to  keep 
all  that  safe.  He  knew  that  it  was  worth  dying  for 
and  he  died." 

The  old  man  did  not  reply,  but  it  was  evident  that 
the  words  had  sunk  into  his  mind.  The  sullen  cloud 
lifted  from  his  face,  and  left  it  almost  beautiful  in  its 
pathos  of  age  and  sorrow. 

The  train  began  to  slacken  speed.  Over  the  fields 
and  trees  a  faint  mist  had  fallen,  as  if  the  air  had 
thickened.  Long  lines  of  mean  villas  came  into  view, 
a  shabby  park,  a  street  of  shops — and  then  there 


LONDON  61 

swung  up  against  the  grey  sky  something  wonderful 
and  vast,  a  curving  river  with  terraces  and  palaces, 
the  towers  of  Westminster,  the  far-off  dome  of  SL 
Paul's,  with  its  golden  cross  touched  with  dull  flame. 
They  were  in  London. 


in 

His  first  impression  of  London  was  of  an  immense 
lassitude,  beneath  which  lay  a  perilous  fire. 

He  had  come  too  late  for  the  glorious  hours  of  pub- 
lic triumph.  The  shouting  was  over,  the  banners 
furled,  the  exultant  music  silenced.  After  the  long 
years  of  tragic  struggle,  during  which  the  minds  of 
men  had  been  held  tense  by  supreme  emotions,  there 
was  an  inevitable  relaxation.  He  could  sympathise 
with  it  for  it  was  his  own  experience.  Those  days  of 
secure  dawns  and  tranquil  occupations,  for  which  he 
had  so  often  sighed  amid  the  relentless  exactions  of 
military  duty,  now  that  they  had  come,  appeared  flat 
and  profitless,  colourless  and  insipid.  He  missed  the 
fierce  exultation  of  war.  He  realised  that  there  had 
gone  out  of  his  life  something,  which,  while  it  was  a 
source  of  pain  and  hardship,  keyed  up  the  whole  of  his 
nature  to  superhuman  exertion,  and  compensated  him 
with  hours  of  sublime  elation.  What  he  felt,  London 
as  a  whole  felt.  The  period  of  reaction  had  begun. 

Not  that  the  great  city  was  not  throbbing  with  vi- 
tality— never  had  the  tides  of  life  run  with  a  more 
flashing  motion,  like  waters  driven  by  a  strong  wind 
in  strong  sunlight  The  theatres  and  restaurants 


fcs  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

were  crowded.  Men  in  uniform  were  everywhere. 
Women,  who  during  the  hard  days  of  the  war 
had  dressed  soberly  and  made  a  virtue  of  shabbi- 
ness,  were  once  more  gratifying  their  taste  in 
finery,  thereby  adding  to  the  streets,  so  long  grim  and 
austere,  touches  of  colour  and  beauty.  But  beneath 
all  this  outward  show  of  joy  there  was  a  deep  sub- 
stratum of  sorrow.  The  nation  was  reckoning  up  its 
losses.  People  everywhere  were  conscious  that  they 
lived  in  a  new  world,  that  the  former  things  had  passed 
away  forever,  and  that  all  things  had  become  new. 

For  instance,  what  Bainbridge  had  said  in  the  train 
about  the  culpability  of  the  statesmen  who  had  let  the 
war  take  them  unawares,  appeared  to  be  a  general 
sentiment.  During  the  actual  process  of  the  great 
conflict  the  nation  had  abstained  from  any  criticism 
of  these  men,  feeling  that  such  criticism  was  ungen- 
erous and  unpatriotic.  But  this  truce  of  silence  was 
now  ended.  There  was  a  disposition  to  accuse  them, 
to  expose  their  amiable  weaknesses,  to  arraign  them 
and  condemn  them.  Some  of  the  angrier  critics  even 
went  so  far  as  to  demand  their  impeachment.  They 
were  servants  of  the  public  who  had  betrayed  their 
trust,  and  it  could  not  be  accepted  as  a  condonation 
of  their  error  that  they  had  paid  for  it  bitterly  in  per- 
sonal losses. 

Already  books  and  pamphlets  on  the  war,  purport- 
ing to  be  histories,  were  appearing  in  great  numbers; 
and  it  was  noticeable  that  their  critics  turned  as  by  a 
common  instinct  to  an  examination  of  the  origins  of 
the  war.  Of  the  heroisms  of  the  war  they  said  little. 


LONDON  63 

These  were  admitted.  They  were  recorded  with  sober 
pride.  But  because  Britain  had  emerged  gloriously 
from  the  tremendous  testing  was  no  reason  why  the 
question  should  not  be  pressed  how  it  had  come  to  pass 
that  Britain  had  met  that  test  absolutely  unprepared? 
How  was  it  that  the  Haldanes  and  the  Asquiths  were 
totally  unaware  of  the  intentions  of  Germany?  How 
was  it  that  the  court  had  no  inkling  of  the  gigantic 
conspiracy  of  their  insane  kinsman  ?  How  was  it  that 
a  conspiracy  which  was  whispered  about  by  every  Ger- 
man clerk  in  every  counting-house  of  London,  was  un- 
known in  Downing  Street?  How  was  it  that  German 
officer  prisoners  had  been  treated  with  extraordinary 
consideration?  How  was  it  that  the  wives  of  Eng- 
lish public  men  had  actually  shown  toward  them  an 
amazing  friendliness?  And  round  these  latter  ques- 
tions all  sorts  of  scandalous  stories  collected.  It  was 
said,  for  instance,  that  a  certain  German  city  was  not 
bombed  for  a  long  time,  although  there  were  ample 
reasons  for  attacking  it,  because  the  wife  of  a  certain 
statesman  had  financial  interests  in  it. 

Chalmers  felt  that  this  new  spirit  of  recrimination 
and  accusation  was  to  be  deplored,  yet  he  realised  that 
it  had  painful  justification.  Sooner  or  later  it  was 
bound  to  find  expression.  The  hour  had  come  when 
men  and  women  looked  around  upon  their  desolated 
homes,  and  began  to  comprehend  their  losses.  They 
had  been  sustained  by  a  superhuman  courage  in  the 
actual  hour  of  loss.  They  had  been  willing  to  give 
all,  and  gave  it  freely,  without  murmur  or  complaint. 
But  now  the  question  gnawed  at  their  hearts,  why  had 


64  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

these  things  happened,  and  could  they  have  been 
avoided?  And  the  nation  was  also  taking  account  of 
other  kinds  of  losses.  They  had  grudged  nothing  to 
carry  on  the  war,  and  had  poured  out  money  like  wa- 
ter; but  now  people  were  engaged  in  examining  the 
bill.  They  were  faced  with  an  immense  national  debt, 
with  the  prospect  of  long  years  of  unprecedented  taxa- 
tion, with  an  enormous  pension  list.  However  patri- 
otic a  man  was,  he  could  not  be  expected  to  accept  these 
burdens  in  meek  silence.  And  since  they  were  unal- 
terable, his  mind  inevitably  asked  whether  after  all  a 
moderate  degree  of  wisdom  and  foresight  might  not 
have  diverted  the  calamity  which  had  laid  the  whole 
world  waste. 

But  beneath  these  movements  of  the  public  mind 
there  lay  another,  more  secret  and  more  perilous. 

It  was  difficult  to  define,  simply  because  it  was  se- 
cret. It  was  a  silent  accumulation  of  imprisoned 
energies  moving  toward  change — a  radical  change  in 
the  whole  structure  of  society. 

On  his  first  Sunday  night  in  London  he  went  to  a 
great  popular  Church  to  hear  a  famous  preacher.  The 
scanty  audience  justified  the  pessimism  of  Father 
Bennett.  The  sermon  was  a  placid  exposition  of  the 
meaning  of  prayer,  ending  with  a  plea  for  unworld- 
liness.  Men  must  set  their  hopes  on  things  above. 
They  must  make  their  earthly  troubles  stepping  stones 
on  which  to  rise  to  a  clearer  vision  of  heaven.  The 
overwhelming  tribulation  through  which  the  nation 
had  passed  should  produce  a  desire  for  this  clearer 
assurance  of  the  reality  of  things  unseen.  It  was  ad- 


LONDON  65 

mirably  expressed,  in  poetic  and  discriminating  dic- 
tion, and  contained  passages  of  real  beauty.  Yet  it 
obviously  made  little  impression  on  the  audience,  which 
consisted  mainly  of  oldish  women  and  grey-haired 
men,  with  the  unmistakable  aspect  of  habitual  wor- 
shippers. They  kindled  once  or  twice  at  some  ex- 
quisite modulation  of  the  preacher's  voice,  at  some  per- 
fectly adapted  illustration,  but  for  the  most  part  they 
listened  with  nothing  more  than  patient  politeness. 

As  Chalmers  came  out  he  walked  behind  two  men 
who  looked  like  prosperous  artisans.  One  was  a  mid- 
dle-aged man  with  a  severe  face,  fringed  with  a  close- 
cropped  grizzled  beard.  The  other  was  a  young  man 
with  particularly  deep-set  dark  eyes,  full  of  sombre 
fire. 

"Well,"  said  the  younger  man,  "I've  heard  him,  and 
once  is  enough.  I  never  want  to  hear  him  no  more." 

"What's  wrong  with  him  ?"  said  the  older  man. 

"The  same  old  tale,"  replied  the  younger  man  bit- 
terly. "Wait  till  you  get  to  heaven  for  what  you  can't 
get  here.  Be  a  good  child,  and  p-raps  you'll  get  a 
lollypop  when  you  go  to  bed.  Well,  the  likes  of  you 
and  me  has  done  a  deal  of  waiting,  and  nothing's 
come  of  it.  We  ain't  going  to  wait  much  longer.  We 
want  our  lollypop  now,  and  by  God,  we're  goin'  to 
get  it" 

"I  thought  as  that  bit  about  heaven  was  kind  of 
beautiful,"  said  his  companion,  rather  wistfully. 
"There  was  a  sort  of  comfort  in  it." 

"Heaven  be  damned,"  was  the  retort  "That's  a 
sucker's  game.  It's  a  confidence  trick.  Be  quiet  and 


66  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

don't  complain,  and  you'll  see  what  I'll  give  you.  Not 
for  me.  I'm  not  haying  any.  I  want  my  heaven 
now,  like  the  rich  folk  who  take  care  they  get  it  now 
because  they  can't  be  sure  of  what  they're  going  to 
get  later  on.  And  remember  this,  we've  the  power  to 
get  what  we  want,  if  we  like  to  use  it,  and  I'm  much 
mistaken  if  we  don't  use  it" 

They  passed  along  the  broad  street,  talking  vigor- 
ously, and  turned  into  a  narrow  by-way,  which  led  to 
a  grey  block  of  workmen's  tenements. 

The  next  day  as  he  crossed  Trafalgar  Square  he  was 
stopped  by  a  long  procession,  with  bands  and  banners. 
It  consisted  wholly  of  women,  most  of  them  young. 
On  the  white  banner  which  headed  the  procession 
there  was  inscribed  in  red  letters : 

WE'VE  DONE  OUR  BIT 
WE  WANT  TO  KEEP  OUR  JOBS 

In  the  evening  papers  he  read  a  full  description  of 
the  scene.  The  grievances  were  too  real  to  admit  dis- 
pute. For  four  years  these  women  had  "done  their 
bit"  with  fidelity,  efficiency,  and  often  with  heroism. 
They  had  been  chauffeurs,  conductors  on  busses,  work- 
ing in  machine  and  munition  factories;  they  had  done 
the  work  of  the  men  who  had  gone  to  the  Front,  but 
now  the  return  of  the  men  had  displaced  them.  It 
was  only  fair  that  the  men  who  came  back  should  re- 
sume the  occupations  they  had  left;  but  it  was  mani- 
festly unfair  that  these  women  should  be  discarded. 
The  papers,  in  their  comments,  offered  no  solution  of 


LONDON  67 

the  difficulty;  but  they  all  admitted  the  peril  of  the 
situation. 

The  peril  was  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  these 
women  workers  had  been  earning  during  the  war  un- 
precedented wages.  They  had  spent  freely,  with  a 
careless  hand.  They  had  bought  pianos,  gramophones 
and  costly  furs;  they  had  formed  expensive  habits, 
and  few  of  them  had  laid  by  anything  for  a  rainy 
day.  Most  of  them  had  become  thoroughly  efficient 
in  the  occupations  they  undertook,  and  could  do  the 
work  assigned  to  them  quite  as  well  as,  and  even  bet- 
ter than,  the  men.  In  many  instances  their  employ- 
ers were  willing  enough  to  keep  them,  for  they  recog- 
nised their  qualities.  What  was  to  be  done  with 
them?  How  were  they  to  be  re-assimilated  into  the 
social  fabric?  No  one  knew.  It  looked  as  if  Eng- 
land was  not  less  prepared  for  her  problems  of  peace 
than  she  had  been  for  the  catastrophe  of  war. 

IV 

Again  and  again  there  recurred  to  his  mind  Father 
Bennett's  sad  conclusion  that  the  old  England  had 
passed  away,  his  yet  sadder  prognostication  that  it 
would  never  return. 

He  had  grown  accustomed  to  the  thought  that  there 
was  a  certain  cleansing  and  uplifting  element  in  war. 
It  was  a  baptism  of  fire  and  blood  which  rejuvenated 
the  souls  of  men.  Had  not  the  thought  been  ex- 
pressed by  poets  like  Rupert  Brooke,  by  soldiers  like 
Donald  Hankey,  by  a  great  company  of  writers  who 


68  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

saw  mankind  coming  out  of  the  furnace  of  war  like 
fine  gold  refined  in  the  fire  of  sorrow  and  sacrifice? 
But  the  more  he  saw  of  London  the  more  he  began  to 
doubt  that  magnanimous  reading  of  events.  What 
sign  was  there  of  regeneration  in  a  London  which  im- 
mediately on  the  signing  of  the  armistice  rushed  back 
to  the  old  ways  of  life,  with  a  passion  for  pleasure  only 
the  more  avid  by  long  denial?  What  new  voice,  au- 
thentic with  truth,  authoritative  with  prophetic  direct- 
ness, had  been  raised  above  the  general  tumult  to  stir 
the  souls  of  men? 

There  was  President  Wilson,  of  course;  but  he 
shared  the  general  dubiety  concerning  the  qualities  of 
that  enigmatic  personality.  It  was  quite  upon  the 
cards  that  he  might  prove  to  be  the  greatest  man  in 
recent  history — equally  on  the  cards  that  he  might 
find  his  place  among  the  dangerous  and  meddlesome 
idealists  who  plucked  out  the  foundations  of  society 
without  any  power  of  replacing  them  with  anything 
more  solid  than  moonshine  theories  of  life.  About 
the  older  statesmen  there  was  no  dubiety.  They  had 
exhausted  their  bag  of  tricks  long  ago,  and  could  only 
repeat  their  old  legerdemain  to  audiences  which  stead- 
ily grew  more  and  more  sceptical.  Lloyd  George  cer- 
tainly had  vision,  but  it  was  erratic  and  untrustworthy, 
at  the  mercy  of  political  opportunism.  As  for  the 
rest,  the  Carsons  and  the  Bal fours  and  the  Laws,  all 
they  wanted  really  was  to  re-establish  as  much  as  they 
could  of  the  ancient  order.  And  the  ancient  order 
couldn't  be  recalled — it  was  gone  root  and  branch. 

The  regeneration  of  war — no,  it  was  very  difficult 


LONDON  169 

to  believe  in  it,  in  the  light  of  actual  facts.  There 
could  be  no  doubt,  as  Father  Bennett  had  put  it,  that 
the  general  effect  of  war  was  that  men  and  women 
everywhere  went  with  a  looser  rein.  Mankind  was 
like  a  school  that  had  broken  loose  in  general  riot  and 
disorder.  They  had  tasted  the  strong  wine  of  free- 
dom and  were  intoxicated  with  it.  Who  should  recall 
them  to  the  drudgeries  of  plain  uninteresting  duty? 
The  mass  of  the  working  class  population  was  in  open 
revolt.  They  claimed  their  right  to  what  they  called 
"a  better  life"  which  did  not  mean  a  life  of  nobler 
ideals,  but  simply  a  life  of  better  material  conditions. 
They  were  not  to  be  blamed  for  that.  The  injustices 
of  their  lot  were  open  and  notorious.  They  had  long 
ago  been  aware  that  they  were  the  producers  of  a 
wealth  in  which  they  had  no  fair  share.  They  were 
going  to  get  their  share — there  was  no  doubt  of  that 
— but  material  prosperity  had  never  yet  made  a  na- 
tion great  and  it  never  would. 

Perhaps  this  reaction  was  after  all  to  be  expected. 
The  wave  ebbed  as  far  as  it  flowed.  He  could  not  be- 
lieve that  the  England  which  had  risen  to  such  splen- 
did heights  of  sacrifice  could  long  remain  supine.  The 
new  leader  must  surely  come,  the  strong  hand  that 
would  shape  her  destinies  to  a  new  glory.  The  old 
England  had  gone,  as  Father  Bennett  had  said — the 
England  that  was  still  feudal  in  spirit,  with  its  roman- 
ticism, its  traditional  loyalties,  its  pleasant  ease  of  life, 
its  invincible  satisfaction  with  its  own  achievements. 
One  could  not  think  of  its  passing  without  poignant 
regret.  Even  the  American,  with  all  his  adoration  of 


70  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

speed,  energy,  hustle,  would  have  liked  to  keep  it  as 
it  was.  While  he  pretended  to  scorn  what  he  called 
its  backwardness,  in  his  heart  he  admired  it.  There 
was  something  in  its  stubborn  placidity,  in  its  rever- 
ence for  tradition,  in  its  slow  pleasant  ways  of  life 
that  soothed  and  pleased  him.  While  he  scorned  this 
England  for  not  being  Americanised,  the  last  thing 
which  he  really  wanted  was  to  see  her  Americanised. 
Well,  after  all,  there  were  a  good  many  Englands  that 
had  passed  away — the  England  of  the  Cavalier,  the 
England  of  Fielding  and  Smollett,  of  Thackeray  and 
Dickens,  the  pre-industrial  England  of  the  yeoman, 
the  pugilist,  the  Corinthian,  of  the  coach,  the  high- 
wayman and  the  press-gang,  and  always  a  new  and 
better  England  had  risen  from  the  disintegration. 
Surely  it  must  be  so  again — whatever  might  be  the 
evolution  of  this  newer  England  it  would  not  wholly 
contradict  the  past  or  disgrace  it.  Nevertheless  the 
period  of  transition  was  difficult,  and  the  longer  he 
stayed  in  London  the  more  there  grew  upon  him  the 
sense  of  something  perilous  at  work  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  things. 


He  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  time  at  the  club  for 
American  officers,  a  stately  house  put  at  their  dis- 
posal by  one  of  the  great  aristocrats.  There  he  met 
one  night  an  artillery  Major,  who  before  the  war  had 
been  a  professor  at  Yale.  He  was  a  tall,  lean  man, 
with  prematurely  white  hair,  and  the  face  of  a  thinker. 
He  came  from  an  old  New  England  family — the  Cald- 


tONDON  71 

wells  were  of  Puritan  ancestry,  and  had  given  a  re- 
markable group  of  educators,  lawyers,  writers  and 
ministers  to  the  Commonwealth.  Major  Caldwell  had 
inherited  from  them  a  notable  keenness  of  mind,  with 
a  fugitive  quality  of  prophetic  vision,  derived  possibly 
from  one  of  the  earliest  Caldwells  who  had  been  a  fa- 
mous denouncer  of  things  evil  in  his  day.  Like  many 
other  men  of  his  type,  his  intellectual  qualities  had 
been  in  abeyance  during  the  war.  He  had  concen- 
trated all  his  energy  on  the  sole  ambition  of  becoming 
a  good  soldier.  His  life  had  been  objective,  not  sub- 
jective. But  with  his  release  from  the  tremendous 
daily  exigencies  of  the  battlefield  his  critical  faculty 
had  re-asserted  itself,  and  his  mind  was  constantly  en- 
gaged in  a  study  of  sociological  conditions.  He  was  a 
conservative  by  nature  and  training,  a  conservative 
who  had  been  swept  out  of  his  old  intellectual  abiding 
places  by  a  great  wave  of  generous  emotion  for  demo- 
cratic ideals.  The  wave  was  now  receding,  and  his 
original  conservatism  was  asserting  itself. 

To  him  Chalmers  confided  some  of  his  impressions 
of  London.  They  were  sitting  at  an  open  window 
and  through  the  evening  dusk  there  came  the  muffled 
roar  of  the  metropolis,  that  deep  monotonous  hum,  as 
of  an  enormous  hive,  the  movement  of  millions  of 
lives  in  incessant  gyration,  a  sound  like  no  other,  more 
solemn  than  the  sound  of  seas  and  winds,  the  voice 
of  an  unappeasable  restlessness,  of  a  whole  universe  of 
imprisoned  energies. 

"I  wonder  what's  really  going  on  down  there  ?"  said 
Chalmers. 


72  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"I  wonder,  too,"  said  the  Major.  "Do  you  know,  it 
frightens  me  a  little?" 

"Why?"  said  Chalmers. 

"The  chief  reason,  I  suppose,  is  just  that  we  don't 
know.  One  fears  the  unknown,  the  hidden,  the  mys- 
terious." 

The  Major  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then  be- 
gan to  speak  in  a  low  voice,  as  if  he  were  talking  to 
himself,  endeavouring  to  formulate  his  own  half- 
shapeless  thought. 

"The  day  of  the  people's  power  has  come,  there's  no 
doubt  about  that.  Quite  suddenly  the  world  has  been 
given  into  their  hands.  What  are  they  going  to  do 
with  it?  Will  they  treat  it  as  a  costly  toy  to  be 
smashed  out  of  pure  mischief  ?  That's  what  the  Bol- 
sheviki  have  done  to  Russia.  They've  got  the  world 
into  their  hands,  and  their  first  instinct  is  to  destroy 
it,  just  to  show  their  strength.  That  temper  is  not 
peculiar  to  Russia.  After  all,  men  everywhere  are 
much  alike.  If  you  suddenly  give  power  to  those  who 
have  never  had  it,  they  will  abuse  it.  We've  de- 
stroyed militarism,  but  there's  this  to  be  said  for  mili- 
tarism— it  was  a  bond,  a  cohesive  force.  It  held  peo- 
ple together,  made  them  act  as  one,  suppressed  the 
natural  anarchic  tendency  of  the  individual.  It  did  it 
tyrannically,  and  therefore  it  was  right  to  destroy  it. 
But  if  you  take  away  cohesion,  the  atoms  of  society 
fall  apart.  The  method  of  cohesion  may  be  bad  or 
good,  but  we  must  have  it  in  some  form  unless  the 
whole  structure  of  civilisation  is  to  dissolve." 


LONDON  73 

"We  have  liberty,  isn't  that  a  bond?"  asked  Chal- 
mers. 

"It  is  if  you  can  agree  upon  a  common  interpreta- 
tion of  liberty,  but  that's  just  what  the  world  has 
never  done.  Liberty,  as  conceived  by  the  law-abid- 
ing Englishman,  is  one  thing :  liberty  as  conceived  by 
the  Russian  anarchist  quite  another.  We  came  to  a 
practical  interpretation  of  liberty  while  we  fought  for 
it  It  was  very  simple — we  had  to  crush  the  Hun  be- 
cause he  was  the  worst  foe  of  liberty  the  world  had 
ever  seen.  The  cohesion  of  common  peril  and  com- 
mon purpose  drove  us  together.  But  now  that  these 
are  relaxed,  each  nation — indeed  each  man — will  give 
his  own  private  interpretation  to  liberty.  Here  is  the 
thing  that  troubles  me :  we've  made  the  world  safe  for 
democracy ;  we  have  now  to  make  democracy  safe  for 
the  world.  Can  we  do  that?  For  believe  me  that  is 
a  far  harder  task  than  crushing  the  Hun." 

Chalmers  remembered  the  words  of  Father  Ben- 
nett about  the  decay  of  the  spirit  of  restraint,  the  con- 
versation of  the  two  workmen  at  the  Church  door,  and 
the  parade  of  women  workers;  and,  as  if  to  give  em- 
phasis to  these  memories,  while  Caldwell  was  speaking 
there  throbbed  upon  the  air  the  distant  clamor  of  band- 
music  and  singing  voices,  and  the  dull  air  grew  red 
with  the  reflection  of  torches.  They  were  still  march- 
ing, these  indefatigable  women,  conscious  of  injustice, 
and  they  were  singing  the  Marseillaise  as  they 
marched. 

To  have  sung  that  in  the  streets  of  London  was 
once  almost  a  prison  offense.  He  remembered  his 


74  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

father  telling  him  of  a  visit  he  made  to  London  in 
the  winter  of  1884,  when  men  marched  every  Sunday 
through  the  streets  carrying  the  red  flag  of  anarchy, 
singing  the  Marseillaise,  until  there  came  a  certain 
Bloody  Sunday  when  the  police  rode  them  down  in 
Trafalgar  Square,  and  their  banners  of  revolt  were 
trampled  in  the  mire.  And  now  the  Marseillaise  was 
the  world-anthem  of  liberty.  It  was  sung  by  every 
free  nation,  by  every  nation  that  desired  freedom;  it 
had  even  been  sung  before  the  royal  palace  at  Berlin. 

The  brave  music  had  a  gladness  in  it.  It  had  the 
effect  of  lifting  the  gloom  which  Cald well's  words  had 
created  in  his  mind. 

"We've  organised  war  on  a  scale  the  world  never 
knew,"  Chalmers  said.  "Think  of  Britain  with  her 
seven  and  a  half  millions  of  fighting  men,  her  million 
and  a  half  of  sailors.  No  one  imagined  she  could  do 
it.  Had  anyone  told  her  in  1914  that  she  could  do 
it,  she  would  have  declared  it  impossible.  This  vast 
array  was  composed  of  men  who  are  just  the  same  men 
as  fill  her  streets  to-day.  If  she  could  organise  war 
on  this  scale,  don't  you  think  she  is  equally  capable 
of  organising  peace?  I  believe  it  can  be  done,  and 
what  is  true  of  Britain  is  equally  true  of  France,  Italy, 
America.  America  particularly,  for  she  knew  less  of 
war  than  any  nation,  and  surprised  all  the  other  na- 
tions in  her  organisation  of  war.  I  don't  believe  peo- 
ples who  have  done  these  great  things  can  fail  in  the 
new  tasks  which  await  them.  There  will  be  mistakes 
— God  knows  there  have  been  mistakes  enough  in  the 
war,  but  men  will  work  out  together  an  organised 


LONDON  75 

liberty.  If  they  fail  in  that  they  will  fail  in  every- 
thing. But  they  won't  fail — from  my  soul  I  believe 
they  will  succeed." 

"I  believe  that,  too,"  said  Caldwell  gravely.  "All 
that  I  say  is  it  won't  be  easy.  We  crushed  militar- 
ism because  in  their  hearts  all  men  hated  it.  It  is 
-more  difficult  to  crush  anarchy,  because  anarchy  is  sel- 
fish individualism,  and  all  men  are  anarchists  at  heart, 
in  the  degree  that  they  are  selfish.  I  say  again,  it  is 
a  much  harder  thing  to  make  democracy  safe  for  the 
world  than  the  world  safe  for  democracy." 


VI 

This  conversation  with  Major  Caldwell  made  a  deep 
impression  on  his  mind. 

He  had  yet  not  learned  to  sleep  well;  any  unusual 
agitation  of  thought  disturbed  the  injured  equilibrium 
of  the  nerves  and  drove  sleep  from  him.  That  night 
his  sleeplessness  took  the  form  of  interminable  con- 
versations. No  sooner  did  his  eyes  close  than  a  whis- 
pering began  in  his  brain,  like  the  sound  of  secret 
voices  in  a  dark  room,  gradually  growing  clearer  and 
louder.  He  tried  not  to  listen,  but  the  voices  in- 
trigued him  in  spite  of  his  will.  Then  it  was  as  if 
some  unseen  hand  touched  a  button,  flashing  on  an 
electric  light,  and  his  brain  was  ablaze.  He  looked 
and  saw  veiled  figures  gliding  out  of  a  distant  door- 
way, still  whispering,  drawn  close  together  in  inti- 
mate confidence;  and  then  they  merged  into  a  single 
figure,  which  he  recognised  as  Caldwell's,  and  he  heard 


76  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

him  again  repeating  his  formula  that  it  was  harder 
to  make  democracy  safe  for  the  world  than  the  world 
safe  for  democracy. 

"Confound  the  man,"  he  cried,  and  drew  the  clothes 
around  his  head ;  but  no  sooner  did  his  eyes  close  than 
that  secret  whispering  began  again.  He  had  slept 
dreamlessly  many  times  in  wet  trenches,  in  open  fields, 
in  the  coffin-like  hollow  of  a  dug-out,  with  the  guns 
booming  like  distant  drums  and  the  Very  lights 
streaming  across  the  dark  sky.  He  had  slept  in  a 
wood  with  dead  men  lying  round  him.  He  had  slept 
in  wet  clothes,  with  his  feet  half  frozen  in  the  mud, 
his  face  uncovered  to  the  keen  starlight  and  the  search- 
ing frost.  Now  he  lay  on  soft  pillows  between  white 
sheets,  and  he  could  not  sleep.  He  had  dreamed  of 
doing  this  so  many  times;  had  pictured  amid  his  dis- 
comforts and  deprivations  the  sweetness  of  a  restful 
bed,  and  now  he  found  no  rest  in  it.  If  he  could  only 
silence  that  whispering  in  his  brain,  the  persecution  of 
those  secret  voices! 

He  rose,  opened  the  window  wide  and  got  into  bed 
again,  hoping  that  the  fresh  air  would  induce  sleep. 
He  closed  his  eyes  resolutely,  and  dozed  for  a  few 
minutes.  Then  the  voices  began  again,  and  now  they 
were  multitudinous.  The  low  hum  of  London  drift- 
ing in  through  the  open  window,  had  mixed  itself  with 
his  dreams.  It  was  like  the  stirring  of  leaves  in  a 
dark  forest,  like  the  monotonous  thudding  of  falling 
water,  like  the  beating  of  a  million  hearts  made  audi- 
ble. He  tortured  his  imagination  to  find  analogies, 
swiftly  rejecting  one  after  another  as  inadequate. 


LONDON  72 

There  came  to  him  suddenly  the  words  of  a  Psalm, 
"Thou  holdest  my  eyes  watching,  I  complain  and  my 
spirit  is  overwhelmed."  "Ah,"  he  thought,  "that  is 
what  the  sound  is  like,  the  noise  of  a  people  complain- 
ing, a  restless  multitude  murmuring  together — millions 
of  mouths  lamenting,  millions  of  hearts  accusing  God 
and  destiny,  all  the  secret  wrong  and  sorrow  of  human 
life  made  vocal,  rising  to  the  indifferent  heavens  like 
one  vast  sigh" —  The  women  he  had  seen  marching 
with  their  complaint  of  injustice,  the  workman  with 
his  angry  repudiation  of  pulpit  opiates,  the  Marseillaise 
with  its  stern  accent  of  revolt,  all  blended  in  his  mind 
into  a  diapason  of  complaining,  the  deep  organ  note 
of  the  human  soul  forever  struggling  to  obtain  some- 
thing which  was  evermore  denied.  Democracy — 
what  was  it  after  all  but  the  demand  of  men  to  get 
a  chance  of  happiness  ?  And  Revolution,  what  was  it 
but  the  despair  of  men  who  found  the  chance  they 
hoped  for,  to  which  they  believed  themselves  entitled, 
escaping  them?  He  was  broad  awake  now.  He  sat 
up  in  bed,  listening  to  that  deep  hum  of  London  which 
filled  the  air.  He  recognised  in  it  a  plea,  a  protest, 
an  accusation — man's  age-long  protest  against  the  un- 
fairness of  human  life,  man's  eternal  accusation  that 
the  world  was  misgoverned. 

He  wished  himself  back  in  the  dreary  misery  of  the 
trenches.  He  could  sleep  there,  and  he  knew  why — 
there  his  life  had  been  simplified  by  the  exigency  of 
a  single  task.  He  was  freed  from  the  leadership  of 
his  own  life,  from  the  responsibility  for  its  direction. 
He  had  but  one  thing  to  do,  to  obey  orders  and  execute 


78 

them  faithfully.  He  had  been  at  peace  there,  in  spite 
of  the  squalor,  the  peril,  the  filth,  the  horror  and  cor- 
ruption. He  had  been  like  a  man  who  had  taken 
vows  and  embraced  the  monastic  life,  a  life  of  separa- 
tion from  personal  desires,  with  all  its  movements 
timed  by  the  clock  of  inexorable  duty.  The  Prior  of 
that  monastery  was  Death.  Quite  literally  its  broth- 
ers gathered  in  their  shrouds  like  Trappist  monks. 
Each  hour  they  lived,  they  lived  as  those  appointed  to 
die.  Yet  he  had  been  happy  in  that  complete  freedom 
from  the  perturbation  of  personal  desires,  as  the  monk 
is  austerely  happy  in  his  renunciation.  And  now  he 
felt  much  as  a  monk  might  feel  who  is  thrust  out  sud- 
denly into  a  forgotten  world.  He  had  to  recover  his 
lost  initiative,  to  familiarise  himself  with  paths  long 
since  deserted,  to  begin  to  live  anew  under  conditions 
which  he  had  discarded,  as  he  supposed,  forever.  And 
at  that  thought  fear  came  upon  him.  He  who  had 
known  no  fear  in  the  constant  contiguity  of  death  was 
afraid  of  the  exactions  of  life. 

He  was  ashamed  of  the  thought  and  put  it  from  him 
resolutely. 

"No,  no,"  he  said,  "this  will  never  do.  Caldwell 
is  right,  the  big  task  is  to  make  democracy  safe  for 
the  world.  We  have  destroyed  its  great  enemy,  au- 
tocracy, but  we  have  yet  to  arm  it  for  its  own  defence. 
We  have  to  show  that  we  were  right  in  fighting  for  it, 
because  democracy  alone  holds  the  secret  and  the 
method  of  human  happiness.  It  was  easy  to  die  for 
the  world;  it  is  harder  to  live  for  it.  This  is  the 
higher  heroism." 


LONDON  79 

In  the  perils  of  the  battlefield  he  had  rarely  prayed. 
He  used  to  take  it  for  granted  that  God  knew  all  about 
him,  and  would  look  after  him  whatever  happened. 
But  now  he  left  that  deep  instinct  for  prayer  which 
comes  to  the  man  who  knows  himself  faced  with  tasks 
too  great  for  human  strength.  He  slipped  out  of  bed, 
and  knelt  in  silence,  finding  no  words  for  his  desires, 
yet  conscious  that  his  innermost  desires  were  being  in- 
terpreted. He  expected  no  immediate  answer,  and 
was  conscious  of  none.  But  in  the  deep  silence  he 
realised  that  his  soul  was  being  filled  with  content  and 
peace.  It  was  like  a  silver  water  of  tranquillity,  very 
cool  and  fresh  and  clear,  that  came  flooding  into  his 
soul,  filling  every  nook  and  cranny,  as  the  sea-tide 
seeks  out  the  little  bays  and  remotest  inlets  of  the 
shore.  He  got  into  bed  again,  and  slept  at  last  with 
the  deep  sleep  of  a  happy  child.  Perhaps  this  bene- 
diction of  sleep  was  the  real  answer  to  his  prayer. 

He  was  awakened  by  a  knocking  at  the  door.  The 
bell-boy  had  brought  him  two  telegrams.  One  was 
from  the  Cunard  Company  saying  that  a  berth  had 
been  reserved  for  him  on  the  Mauretania,  which  sailed 
in  three  days'  time.  The  other  was  from  his  uncle, 
saying  how  eagerly  he  was  expected  in  America.  He 
did  not  see  Major  Caldwell  again  until  they  met  in 
New  York  some  weeks  later. 


PART  TWO 


AN  APOLOGUE 

I  ASK  the  pardon  of  my  readers  for  interposing  at 
this  point  a  brief  apologue. 

On  the  third  of  August,  1492,  a  man  of  stubborn 
faith  and  indomitable  daring  set  out  to  discover  a  New 
World.  His  largest  ship  was  a  decked  vessel  of  one 
hundred  tons;  the  other  ships  of  his  trivial  Armada 
were  two  caravels,  of  fifty  and  forty  tons.  His  en- 
tire party  of  adventurers  numbered  only  eighty-eight. 
He  had  recruited  his  crews  with  extreme  difficulty. 
It  had  been  necessary  to  offer  an  indemnity  to  crim- 
inals and  broken  men  to  induce  them  to  serve  on  the 
expedition.  Few  of  them  had  any  correct  compre- 
hension of  the  purpose  of  the  voyage,  and  none  any 
enthusiasm  for  it.  They  were  ready  to  mutiny  on 
the  least  occasion.  The  falling  of  a  meteor  into  the 
sea  was  interpreted  by  them  as  a  divine  omen  not  to 
proceed,  and  the  westerly  variations  of  the  magnetic 
compass  filled  them  with  alarm.  Above  this  crowd 
of  timid  and  apprehensive  men  Columbus  towered  like 
a  prophet  of  the  Lord.  He  alone  had  vision ;  he  alone 
was  the  dreamer  of  a  dream  which  he  knew  would 
come  true.  After  seventy  lonely  days  and  nights  of 
sailing  on  an  uncharted  sea  he  recognised  the  first 
signs  of  land,  the  soft  fragrance  of  unseen  forests,  a 
flight  of  birds,  a  floating  branch  covered  with  red 

83 


84  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

berries,  an  iron-shod  pole  wrought  by  human  hands; 
and,  says  the  chronicle,  "With  these  signs  all  of  them 
breathed  and  were  glad." 

Columbus  had  found  a  New  World  beyond  the 
furthest  waters.  It  was  utterly  unlike  the  world  that 
he  had  left.  It  was  primitive,  simple,  social,  unfet- 
tered by  artificial  laws,  ignorant  of  the  grinding 
tyranny  of  caste,  unstained  by  the  pollution  of  courts 
and  the  selfish  passions  of  kings.  Man  moved  freely 
in  the  natural  dignity  of  human  nature.  The  kindly 
earth  was  the  common  heritage  of  all.  Behind  him, 
he  had  left  infection;  here  was  paradisal  health.  From 
an  Old  World,  red  with  blood,  corrupt  and  dying,  he 
had  passed  into  a  New  World,  which  offered  to  the 
weary  host  of  humanity  a  new  start  for  a  nobler  pil- 
grimage. 

From  that  hour  a  new  page  in  the  book  of  univer- 
sal history  was  turned.  But  the  Old  World  crossed 
the  ocean  with  Columbus.  What  men  made  of  their 
new  heritage,  what  records  they  wrote  on  this  new 
page,  what  heroism  and  follies,  what  splendid  valours 
and  disgraceful  cruelties,  we  all  know.  If  Columbus 
could  indeed  have  left  the  Old  World  behind,  the 
story  might  have  been  very  different;  but  he  took  it 
with  him.  He  took  possession  of  the  New  World 
in  the  names  of  their  Catholic  Majesties  of  Castile 
and  Leon,  and  thereby  planted  the  seeds  of  all  the 
ancient  evils  and  corruptions  in  the  virgin  soil  of 
Guanaliane,  which  he  re-named  San  Salvador.  A 
greater  man  would  have  cut  the  cable  that  held  him 
to  the  Old  World  for  good  and  all.  Columbus  was 


AN  APOLOGUE  85 

not  great  enough  for  that  supreme  renunciation.  His 
prophetic  vision  was  exhausted  in  the  hour  when  his 
feet  trod  the  golden  sands  of  San  Salvador.  He  saw 
no  longer  a  New  World,  but  only  a  New  Spain,  which 
was  a  very  different  thing. 

The  quest  for  a  New  World  has  gone  on  in  every 
generation.  Men  are  adventurers  still  at  heart,  and 
are  resistlessly  impelled  toward  wider  seas.  They 
broke  away  from  the  old  at  the  call  of  Savonarola, 
Huss  and  Luther;  they  broke  yet  more  completely 
when  the  challenging  trumpet  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion roused  a  sleeping  world.  The  fearful  irony  of 
human  history  is  that  men  persist  in  taking  their  old 
worlds  with  them  when  they  discover  new  worlds. 
They  dare  not  cut  the  cable  that  binds  them  to  the 
past.  Their  moral  force  is  not  equal  to  their  intellec- 
tual vision.  They  win  their  new  world,  and,  having 
won  it,  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  it.  For  the  want 
of  this  diviner  knowledge  they  mishandle  the  new  heri- 
tages they  have  won  with  blood  and  carnage,  and  in 
the  end  men  find  they  have  but  exchanged  papal  in- 
fallibility for  the  crushing  pedantry  of  Calvin,  and  the 
effete  tyranny  of  the  Bourbon  for  the  vigorous  tyranny 
of  Bonaparte.  The  world  broke  with  its  past,  in  1914. 
On  that  memorable  August  night  when  the  entire 
British  Fleet  vanished  in  the  mists  of  the  North  Sea, 
the  world  set  sail  upon  a  new  adventure,  far  more 
momentous  than  the  voyage  of  Columbus.  It  was 
headed  for  the  Unknown.  After  long  and  perilous 
voyaging  it  found  its  New  World.  Let  us  applaud 
the  great  adventure,  with  its  tale  of  deathless  heroism 


86  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

and  enduring  glory.  But  the  larger  matter  is  what 
will  the  human  race  make  of  its  destiny?  Will  it 
have  the  supreme  daring  to  cut  the  cable  which  holds 
it  to  the  past?  Is  its  ultimate  vision  a  New  World  or 
a  New  Spain,  the  old  tyrannies  reproduced  under 
new  names  or  a  fresh  beginning  for  the  human  race, 
untrammelled  by  past  traditions,  uninf  ected  by  the  old 
Corruptions?  Do  we  take  possession  of  our  New 
World  as  men  capable  of  creating  a  new  order  of  so- 
ciety, or  simply  as  a  predatory  host  in  the  name  of  the 
sacred  majesties  of  Castile  and  Leon? 

A  New  World  is  worth  nothing  to  men  who  have 
not  a  new  spirit.  For  the  larger  purposes  of  human 
progress  we  may  as  well  have  remained  in  our  Spain, 
if  we  carry  our  Spain  with  us,  and  can  signalise  the 
end  of  our  adventure  in  no  better  way  than  to  rename 
Guanaliane  San  Salvador.  If  this  is  all  Columbus 
can  achieve  at  the  end  of  his  heroic  voyage,  it  had 
been  better  for  us  all  had  he  never  left  the  palaces  of 
Granada.  He  would  have  missed  his  human  immor- 
tality, the  praise  of  history  and  the  sumptuous  tomb 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Seville,  but  how  much  would  the 
world  have  been  spared  of  piracy  and  bloodshed,  of 
fatal  lusts  and  crushing  cruelties,  the  spoliation  of 
fruitful  lands,  the  massacres  of  simple  races,  and  the 
tortures  of  the  Inquisition  conducted  in  the  name  of 
God  and  with  the  ingenuity  of  devils? 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  VOYAGE 


I  DO  not  assert  that  this  apologue  was  in  the  mind 
of  Chalmers  as  he  turned  his  face  westward,  but  it 
may  be  taken  as  symbolic  of  his  state  of  mind.  He 
had  a  sense  of  sailing  into  the  Future.  His  spirits 
rose  as  the  immensity  of  ocean  scenery  met  his  view. 
Even  the  Titanic  business  of  war  sank  into  insignifi- 
cance before  this  immensity  of  sea  and  sky,  the  bound- 
lessness of  these  plains  of  ocean,  the  grandeur  of 
these  Alpine  cloud  masses,  vaster  than  all  material 
mountains,  the  capricious  Himalayas  of  the  sea. 

From  a  boy  he  had  had  the  faculty  of  losing  the 
weight  and  torture  of  personality  when  confronted 
with  the  immensity  of  Nature.  In  the  silence  of 
woods,  but  oftener  under  the  span  of  starry  skies,  he 
had  felt  a  poignant  sense  of  the  insignificance  of  man 
and  of  all  human  affairs.  The  perturbations  of  per- 
sonal ambition  seemed  such  little  things  compared 
with  the  persistent  flow  of  elemental  forces,  the  secular 
rage  of  life  that  throbbed  through  all  the  atoms  of  the 
globe,  the  planetary  rush  and  urge  of  worlds  toward 
unknown  goals.  He  knew  very  well  that  it  was  not 

87 


88  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

a  healthy  condition  of  thought;  it  reduced  all  human 
effort  to  absurdity,  and  he  had  often  sought  to  over- 
come it.  But  there  were  times  when  it  came  as  a 
great  relief  to  the  exhausting  experiences  of  the  spirit, 
and  this  was  such  a  time.  On  the  first  night  at  sea  he 
walked  the  deck  long  after  midnight,  watching  the 
stars  as  they  dipped  beneath  the  long  black  line  of  the 
horizon,  until  he  felt  as  though  they  were  bright 
chariots,  which  carried  into  oblivion  his  own  anxieties 
and  griefs.  He  slept  with  the  soft  sea-air  blowing  on 
his  face,  and  woke  with  a  sense  of  health  which  he 
had  not  known  for  many  months.  All  that  he  had 
suffered  and  endured  appeared  a  dream  from  which 
he  had  awakened — something  that  had  happened  to 
someone  else,  which  he  faintly  recognised  as  himself. 
His  interest  in  the  human  drama  came  back  with  a 
rush  as  he  walked  the  deck  in  the  fresh  morning  light. 
His  mind  went  back  to  the  last  time  he  had  crossed 
the  Atlantic,  the  stealthy  glide  of  the  ship  like  a 
ghost  over  grey  waters,  the  ever  present  sense  of  peril, 
the  fugitive  hunted  haste  and  the  flying  terror,  like 
a  deer  fleeing  for  her  life,  dogged  by  invisible  pur- 
suers. There  was  a  touch  of  madness  in  it  all,  a 
sense  of  the  monstrous  and  incredible  to  which  the 
mind  could  not  reconcile  itself.  He  could  fancy  the 
great  vessel  herself  hag-ridden,  haunted,  whispering 
to  herself  in  every  creaking  timber  secret  messages  of 
fear.  But  to-day,  as  she  ploughed  through  the  roll- 
ing waters,  it  was  as  though  she  sang  for  joy,  con- 
scious of  her  own  release  from  terror.  She  moved 
with  a  majestic  fearlessness ;  her  brasses  gleamed  like 


THE  VOYAGE  89 

gold,  her  masts  rose  proud  and  challenging  against 
the  sky,  her  screw  flailed  the  waters  into  miniature 
Niagaras  of  sparkling  foam.  And  the  passengers  had 
the  same  air  of  freedom  and  elation.  Their  eyes 
were  bright,  their  lips  smiling,  they  were  like  school- 
children on  a  holiday. 

The  New  World,  how  alluring  the  prospect — But 
the  Old  World  was  travelling  with  them. 

It  was  the  Old  World  that  sat  beside  him  at  the 
breakfast  table  in  the  person  of  a  gross  middle-aged 
man  with  greying  hair  and  small  greedy  eyes.  He 
bore  the  name  of  Bulstrode,  and  somehow  the  very 
name  suggested  grossness.  He  ate  dish  after  dish  of 
rich  food  with  piggish  eagerness,  at  the  end  of  which 
unedifying  performance  he  wiped  his  mouth  vigor- 
ously and  remarked,  "Well,  I  feel  the  better  for  that." 

He  appeared  to  be  waiting  to  be  congratulated  on 
the  fact.  When  Chalmers  said  nothing,  he  made  an 
effort  at  conversation  by  remarking  that  the  ship  was 
very  full,  much  too  full  for  comfort.  He  explained 
that  he'd  had  great  difficulty  in  securing  a  cabin  to 
himself,  and  seemed  to  think  himself  affronted  by  the 
reluctance  of  the  Company  to  meet  his  wishes. 

"However,  I  got  it,"  he  went  on.  "I  paid  for  the 
two  berths,  and  I'm  pretty  comfortable." 

Chalmers  remembered  his  own  crowded  cabin.  He 
shared  it  with  three  soldiers,  one  of  whom  had  been 
gassed  and  slept  badly,  another  with  a  useless  arm, 
which  made  dressing  a  humiliation  to  him.  And  Mr. 
Bulstrode  had  a  two-berth  cabin  to  himself,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  indulging  himself  in  pompous  solitude. 


90  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

He  felt  no  inclination  to  talk  with  the  man,  but 
Bulstrode  was  the  sort  of  man  who  was  perfectly  will- 
ing to  talk  without  any  expectation  of  reply.  He  took 
it  for  granted  that  the  universe  was  interested  in  all 
his  doings.  He  was  satisfied  that  he  was  the  kind  of 
person  in  whom  the  universe  ought  to  be  interested. 
And  the  creature  actually  had  views  and  opinions 
which  he  thought  important,  particularly  views  upon 
the  war.  He  was  critical  of  Foch's  military  genius, 
and  not  at  all  well-pleased  with  Haig  and  Pershing. 
Above  all  he  thought  that  the  war  ought  not  to  have 
ended  yet  awhile.  And  presently  he  blurted  out  his 
reason — "It's  been  a  good  little  war  for  me.  I've 
cleaned  up  a  million  dollars  out  of  it." 

So  that  was  what  he  was,  thought  Chalmers,  a  pro- 
fiteer. While  millions  of  men  had  given  their  lives, 
this  fat  spider  had  sat  in  his  web,  sucking  their  blood 
and  weaving  their  substance  into  threads  of  gold.  His 
gorge  rose  at  the  man,  and  a  red  wave  of  anger  rushed 
across  his  brain. 

"So  it  was  to  save  beasts  like  you  that  my  comrades 
died,  was  it?"  he  cried.  "To  give  you  the  power  to 
use  two  berth  cabins  while  men  who  are  maimed  are 
crowded  in  anyhow!  I  wish  to  God  I  had  you  alone 
in  a  front-line  trench  with  a  Mills'  bomb  in  my  hand 
— I'd  rid  the  earth  of  your  filthy,  bloated  carcase. 
And  you  call  yourself  a  man  and  an  American!" 

Bulstrode  turned  pale  before  the  fury  of  this  at- 
tack, but  his  assurance  did  not  leave  him. 

"I'm  as  good  an  American  as  you  are,"  he  retorted. 
"I've  done  my  duty,  and  if  I've  made  money  at  the 


THE  VOYAGE  91 

same  time,  who's  to  blame  me?  I've  no  doubt  you 
wish  you'd  done  the  same." 

"O,  go  to  hell!"  said  Chalmers.  "You  make  me 
tired." 

He  left  him  to  digest  the  insult  and  went  on  deck. 
Later  in  the  day,  in  the  smoking-room,  he  learned 
something  of  the  man's  history.  He  was  a  coffin-con- 
tractor. 

"A  what?"  he  asked  his  informant. 

"Belongs  to  a  Casket  Trust,  so  it's  said.  In  the 
beginning  of  the  war  America  sent  over  thousands  of 
wooden  coffins  to  bury  the  dead  in.  It  was  some  kind 
of  graft  probably.  Anyway,  they  weren't  wanted. 
They  got  used  as  sentry  boxes,  I  heard.  But  Bui- 
strode  made  money  out  of  it,  and  out  of  other  things, 
too.  I've  no  doubt  he  is  sorry  the  war's  over.  It's 
been  the  biggest  chance  of  making  money  he's  ever 
had  or  will  have." 

"I  guess  we'll  get  some  of  his  money  out  of  him  be- 
fore we've  done  with  him,"  said  another  man. 

"How  do  you  propose  to  do  that?" 

"Just  take  it.     Plain  highway  robbery,  if  you  like." 

There  was  a  general  laugh. 

"Well,  I  don't  exactly  mean  that,  of  course.  But 
we've  got  to  pay  for  the  war,  haven't  we  ?  The  way 
I'd  pay  for  it  is  very  simple.  I'd  collect  up  everybody 
who's  become  rich  by  the  war,  and  take  everything 
they've  made  by  it.  Add  to  these  those  who've  al- 
ways had  too  much  money,  and  take  what's  necessary. 
If  we  did  that,  we'd  pay  for  the  whole  war  easily 
enough." 


92  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Ah,  here  is  the  New  World,"  thought  Chalmers — • 
"Bolshevism,  or  whatever  they  call  it.  Make  the  rich 
pay.  They've  no  right  to  be  rich,  anyway.  Take 
what  you  want  from  those  who've  got  the  most.  Cer- 
tainly the  plan  has  the  merit  of  simplicity." 

The  curious  thing  was  that  the  plan  really  did  seem 
to  be  approved  by  the  men  in  the  smoking-room. 
They  were  the  usual  kind  of  men  one  finds  in  such  a 
place,  except  that  a  third  were  soldiers.  They  were 
no  doubt  quiet,  law-abiding  citizens.  Yet  they  viewed 
with  serene  approval  a  scheme  for  the  spoliation  of  the 
rich.  The  rich  must  pay  for  the  war — that  was  an 
accepted  principle.  Bulstrode  and  his  kind  must  pay. 
No  man  must  be  permitted  to  be  a  penny  richer  by 
the  war.  If  he'd  made  money  by  the  war,  he'd  want 
another  war;  and  if  there  were  men  enough  who  ex- 
pected to  make  money  by  war,  they'd  do  their  best  to 
create  wars. 

This  was  the  line  of  argument  pursued  by  all  the 
speakers.  The  man  who  had  introduced  the  subject 
laid  particular  stress  upon  the  danger  to  world  peace 
from  men  whose  interests  were  all  in  the  direction  of 
war. 

"Bulstrode's  a  type,"  he  insisted.  "He's  not 
troubled  by  ideals,  but  he  has  a  business  man's  per- 
fectly natural  appetite  for  success.  He  doesn't  want 
to  kill  anybody,  and  is  too  fat  to  be  blood-thirsty.  He 
does  want  to  make  money.  The  war  gave  him  his 
opportunity,  and  he's  profited  by  it.  It's  just  the  same 
way  with  the  Krupps,  but  of  course  upon  a  larger 
scale.  They  wanted  war  because  they  stood  to  make 


THE  VOYAGE  93 

millions  by  it.  The  only  way  I  can  see  to  stop  war  is 
to  make  it  unprofitable.  Men  like  Bulstrode  must  be 
made  to  see  that  war  doesn't  pay.  And  the  best  way 
to  drive  that  very  wholesome  truth  into  his  thick  head 
is  to  take  from  him  all  the  money  he's  made  by  war. 
He'll  never  want  another  war  after  that,  you  may  de- 
pend." 

The  unfortunate  Bulstrode  found  only  one  defender. 
A  quiet,  elderly  man,  with  the  supercilious  eye-brows 
of  a  college  pedant,  who  smiled  ironically  as  the  dis- 
cussion went  on,  and  at  last  took  part  in  it  with  the 
remark  that  spoliation  was  a  dangerous  weapon  which 
usually  recoiled  on  those  who  used  it. 

"It's  like  an  old  blunderbuss  my  grandfather  had," 
he  said.  "It  was  a  tremendous  affair,  with  a  great 
bell  mouth,  pretty  nearly  as  heavy  as  a  field  gun.  My 
grandfather  thought  he  heard  a  burglar  one  night,  and 
got  down  the  old  blunderbuss,  and  went  out  to  shoot 
him.  He  shot  him  all  right,  he  ripped  off  a  bit  of  the 
man's  ear.  But  the  blamed  thing  kicked,  and  broke 
his  own  jaw.  The  burglar  recovered  sooner  than  my 
grandfather." 

"That's  all  very  well  for  a  story,  but "  inter- 
rupted the  advocate  of  spoliation. 

"Pardon  me,  I  didn't  tell  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
story,  but  for  its  moral.  I  don't  in  the  least  object  to 
shooting  burglars,  especially  if  they've  got  the  swag 
with  them.  But  look  out  for  the  recoil.  When  you 
start  robbing  robbers  you  are  very  apt  to  go  on  to 
robbing  honest  men.  It  becomes  a  habit.  Look  at 
Russia.  The  Russians  began  by  robbing  the  men  who 


94  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

deserved  to  be  robbed ;  but  the  habit  grew  on  them,  and 
to-day  the  robbers  are  all  robbing  one  another.  So 
far  as  I  can  understand  their  temper  their  one  idea 
of  social  justice  is  that  no  one  ought  to  possess  any- 
thing, for  possession  is  in  itself  a  crime.  But  pos- 
session is  after  all  the  symbol  of  a  man's  decency.  To 
have  something  that  is  really  his  own,  a  house,  a  bit 
of  land,  a  little  money  in  the  bank,  is  the  basis  of 
self-respect.  When  you  take  those  things  from  him, 
you  kill  his  self-respect,  and  equip  him  as  a  criminal. 
He  will  begin  to  rob  because  he  has  been  robbed,  and 
the  end  of  that  kind  of  thing  is  anarchy." 

The  discussion  might  have  gone  on  endlessly,  but 
at  that  instant  Bulstrode  entered  the  smoking-room. 
He  was  received  in  dead  silence.  He  was  tacitly 
treated  by  all  of  them  as  a  man  beyond  the  pale.  He 
had  not  only  made  money  by  the  war,  but  wanted  the 
war  to  go  on  that  he  might  make  more  money.  For 
that  inhuman  cupidity  there  was  no  forgiveness. 

Chalmers  felt  the  man's  presence  so  repugnant  that 
he  was  glad  to  get  out  of  the  room  into  the  fresh  sea- 
air.  He  felt  a  need  of  lustration;  he  drank  in  great 
draughts  of  clean  air  as  one  who  wished  to  rid  him- 
self of  a  secret  contamination.  One  by  one  all  the 
others  came  out  on  deck,  leaving  Bulstrode  to  the  in- 
explicable silence  of  the  smoking-room.  Even  he 
must  have  shrank  before  the  mysterious  ostracism, 
and  in  his  dull  mind  wondered  what  he'd  done  to  de- 
serve it. 

"And  yet  he's  probably  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  the  Old  World  he  represents,"  thought  Chalmers. 


THE  VOYAGE  95 

"It's  quite  true — he's  a  type.  His  offence  seems  mon- 
strous because  we  see  it  against  the  scarlet  background 
of  suffering  and  heroism.  But  is  it  any  more  mon- 
strous than  shooting  down  strikers  to  make  oil  divi- 
dends— doing  all  the  things  unscrupulous  wealth  has 
done  for  generations — and  not  been  blamed  for  either 
— their  crime  condoned  by  its  success,  the  men  them- 
selves finally  accepted  as  philanthropists,  adulated  by 
the  press,  defended  and  even  praised  by  the  pulpit. 

The  Old  World,  is  it  really  dead?     And  can  there 
be  a  New  World  while  it  survives? 


n 

From  these  sociological  themes,  his  mind  was  sud- 
denly diverted  by  a  personal  interest  that  was  to  have 
a  remarkable  effect  upon  his  life. 

He  had  insulted  Bulstrode  so  grossly  at  break- 
fast that  it  was  perfectly  natural  that  he  should  seek 
another  table  for  his  gastronomic  performances.  Chal- 
mers noted  his  disappearance  with  satisfaction;  and, 
looking  round  the  dining-room,  saw  him  in  a  distant 
corner,  in  full  evening  dress  with  diamonds  in  his 
shirt-front,  much  too  large  for  decency,  of  the  kind 
affected  by  sporting  men  and  bar-tenders.  A  large 
Jewish  woman  with  a  small  sallow  husband  sat  beside 
him,  and  Chalmers  could  almost  hear  them  whisper- 
ing together  about  Bulstrode's  diamonds,  wondering 
if  they  were  real  and  what  they  were  worth.  He 
smiled  ironically  at  the  picture  he  now  conjured  up 


96  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

in  his  mind,  and  said  "Of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Mammon." 

What  he  was  quite  unaware  of  was  that  life  was 
preparing  a  surprise  for  him,  out  of  the  accident  of 
his  indignation  against  Bulstrode,  in  the  sardonic  way 
that  life  has  of  using  insignificant  incidents  to  bring 
about  quite  significant  results.  The  chair  at  the  table 
which  Bulstrode  had  vacated — it  was  the  one  next  his 
own — was  presently  filled  by  a  charming  little  person, 
with  an  exquisitely  fair  skin,  fair  hair,  and  an  en- 
chanting freshness  of  appearance.  She  was  dressed 
in  piquant  black,  which  made  a  perfect  setting  for  her 
fairness,  and  wore  no  ornament  of  any  kind.  Her 
name  was  Claire  Gunnison. 

She  did  not  talk  much,  but  she  had  the  rare  art  to 
make  her  silence  an  interpretation  of  her  personality. 
Charm  is  something  that  is  independent  of  either 
speech  or  silence ;  it  is  an  evocation  and  an  atmosphere. 
Chalmers  felt  its  presence,  as  one  conscious  of  a  faint 
magnetic  current.  He  gathered  from  her  that  she  had 
been  in  Paris  during  the  latter  part  of  the  war.  Her 
black  dress  suggested  sorrow,  but  in  its  quiet  elegance 
it  also  suggested  sorrow  as  lightly  worn.  Her  eyes 
were  more  vivacious  than  her  speech.  They  were  of 
an  unusual  grey,  which  deepened  into  blue;  they  re- 
minded him  of  the  Channel  sea.  Her  hands  were 
particularly  beautiful,  longer  than  is  usual,  with  deli- 
cately tapering  fingers,  of  a  shell-like  pink  at  the  tips. 
To  Chalmers,  hungry  for  women,  as  all  soldiers  are 
hungry  after  the  long  monastic  discipline  of  camp  and 
trenches,  she  was  an  alluring  apparition.  The  only 


THE  VOYAGE  97 

women  he  had  seen  for  many  months  had  been  hospi- 
tal nurses,  preoccupied  in  their  profession,  in  whom 
sex  was  subdued.  Claire  Gunnison  was  Nature's  un- 
restrained expression  of  sex.  The  soft  contours  of 
her  face,  the  delicate  grace  of  her  body,  the  tendrils  of 
golden  hair  that  clustered  at  the  back  of  her  neck,  the 
rise  and  fall  of  her  bodice  as  she  breathed,  the  perfume 
of  her  clothes — all  these  were  the  subtle  weapons  of 
sex,  and  all  were  so  very  different  from  the  austere 
khaki-clad  women  and  the  starched  immaculate  vir- 
ginity of  hospital  nurses  he  had  known,  that  the  allure- 
ment fell  on  him  with  novel  force.  Yet  there  was 
about  her  a  certain  firmness,  a  quality  of  definiteness, 
which  separated  her  from  the  women  whose  beauty  is 
their  sole  possession.  He  knew  instinctively  that  she 
was  more  than  a  lovely  woman ;  she  was  a  woman  who 
had  thought  for  herself,  and  attained  a  fixed  philos- 
ophy of  life. 

He  did  not  discover  that  philosophy  at  once.  He 
drew  her  deck-chair  against  his  after  dinner,  and  to- 
gether they  watched  the  moon  rise  out  of  the  dusky 
sea,  and  talked  of  places  known  to  both  of  them. 
Friendships  formed  at  sea  are  proverbially  rapid,  and 
by  the  next  day  he  was  on  intimate  terms  with  her. 
She  told  him  about  her  girlhood  in  an  ancient  Eng- 
lish village,  where  church  bells  had  called  the  hours 
since  the  days  of  Norman  knights,  whose  benefac- 
tions built  the  church.  She  told  him  of  the  restless- 
ness of  spirit  engendered  by  too  much  rest,  the  grad- 
ual revolt  against  the  serene  deadness  of  rural  beati- 
tudes. She  had  been  engaged  to  be  married  at  the 


98  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

beginning  of  the  war,  and  her  lover  had  fallen  in  the 
battle  of  the  Marne.  Chalmers  remembered  the  name 
of  Major  Choate;  it  had  been  associated  with  a  no- 
torious divorce  case.  And  here  she  struck  her  first 
note  of  modernity,  for  she  spoke  of  the  dead  man 
with  admiration,  and  did  not  resent  his  infidelity. 

"Why  should  I?"  she  said  quietly.  "He  had  the 
right  to  please  himself.  If  he  had  lived,  he  would 
have  heard  no  word  of  blame  from  me." 

Before  the  war  began  she  had  reacted  from  the 
stupid  dullness  of  the  conventional  woman's  life  into 
the  fierce  activity  of  the  militant  suffragette.  She  had 
adored  Mrs.  Pankhurst,  but  blamed  her  for  not  recog- 
nising the  full  conclusions  of  her  own  logic.  She 
claimed  freedom  for  women,  but  that  freedom  must 
be  absolute  if  it  was  not  to  be  worthless. 

"To  fight  simply  for  a  vote,  what  a  ridiculous  am- 
bition!" she  exclaimed.  "Most  of  us  fought  for  far 
more  than  that.  We  intended  to  be  free  to  arrange 
our  lives  as  we  pleased,  to  be  like  men  not  only  by 
voting  but  by  acting  with  the  freedom  of  men  in  all 
matters  that  concern  ourselves." 

And  she  made  no  pretence  of  disguising  what  this 
freedom  meant.  It  found  the  conventional  view  of 
marriage  utterly  repugnant.  It  was  an  artificial  bond. 
It  was  ridiculous  when  one  considered  the  subtle 
changes  in  personality  which  are  wrought  by  years, 
and  often  by  single  swift  events.  Men  had  tried  to 
enforce  a  law  on  women  to  hold  them  in  captivity, 
women  had  done  the  same  by  men,  and  neither  had 
succeeded.  The  war  had  given  freedom  to  both. 


THE  VOYAGE  99 

Neither  was  going  to  put  the  old  yoke  on  the  neck 
again. 

"The  wise  people  who  have  conducted  the  war," 
she  said  with  an  ironical  smile,  "think  that  the  sole 
effect  of  the  war  is  to  free  nations  from  political  servi- 
tude. They've  built  better  than  they  knew,  they've 
freed  men  and  women  from  every  kind  of  servitude, 
servitude  to  convention,  servitude  to  opinion,  servitude 
to  Puritan  narrowness — all  that  kind  of  thing.  Do 
you  understand  ?" 

Chalmers  found  it  very  difficult  to  understand. 
After  all,  the  roots  of  his  own  life  lay  in  Puritan 
morality.  There  had  been  a  tradition  of  austerity  in 
his  family.  There  were  times  when  he  had  resented 
it,  arid  had  suspected  that  there  was  something  wrong 
and  false  in  it.  But  he  knew  that  the  fruit  was  good ; 
he  had  often  told  himself  that  its  restraint  was  good 
for  him.  It  was  good  for  him  especially  because  there 
was  so  much  hot  blood  in  his  veins,  so  much  of  the 
poet,  so  fierce  a  desire  to  seize  upon  the  joy  of  life 
with  both  hands,  and  drink  the  draught  to  its  dregs. 

Something  of  this  he  told  her,  for  confidence  begets 
confidence,  and  it  was  a  long  time  since  he  had  talked 
with  a  woman  whose  mind  was  sympathetic  to  him. 

"I  sometimes  think,"  he  said,  half-jestingly,  "that 
I  am  a  Puritan  by  tradition  but  a  Greek  by  spirit. 
I've  read  somewhere  that  the  essence  of  the  Greek 
spirit  was  the  wisdom  of  getting  joy  out  of  the  com- 
mon day.  The  Greek  turned  his  face  away  from  the 
long  perspectives  which  ended  in  sombre  shadows.  I 
suppose  you  would  say  that  the  folly  of  the  Puri- 


100 

tan  was  that  he  did  just  the  opposite — he  fixed  his 
gaze  on  the  long  sombre  perspectives  and  missed  the 
joy  of  the  common  day." 

"I  was  brought  up  much  in  the  same  way,"  she 
answered.  "I  suppose  most  of  us  were.  We  couldn't 
take  short  views  of  life.  We  couldn't  enjoy  a  sunny 
day  because  we  were  sure  it  would  rain  to-morrow." 

"Well,  the  war  has  cured  me  of  that  particular 
form  of  folly.  You're  bound  to  take  short  views  of 
life  when  you  reckon  life  by  hours  and  not  by  years," 
he  replied. 

"I  wonder  whether  you  are  really  cured,  or  only 
think  you  are,  my  friend." 

"I'm  cured  of  the  habit  of  foreboding.  I  know  that. 
I  don't  look  forward  as  I  once  did.  I've  grown  so 
used  to  having  only  the  present  that  I  don't  think 
about  the  future  as  mine  at  all." 

"Ah,  that's  only  a  negative  deliverance.  The  posi- 
tive deliverance  is  not  in  ridding  oneself  of  the  future, 
but  in  really  possessing  the  present." 

The  phrase  sank  into  his  mind,  creating  a  good 
many  eddies  of  thought.  What  did  she  mean  by  it 
exactly?  Was  this  part  of  the  heritage  of  the  war 
that  the  bondage  of  men  to  the  future  was  broken; 
that  human  creatures  had  so  thoroughly  learned  the 
insecurity  of  happiness  that  they  would  henceforth 
seize  on  any  available  happiness  with  a  new  avidity, 
and  be  deterred  by  no  remote  threat  of  consequences? 
He  knew  very  well  that  this  was  the  spirit  of  many 
men  he  had  known.  They  were  good  comrades,  they 
had  proved  themselves  true  heroes,  but  they  had 


THE  VOYAGE  101 

thought  themselves  justified  in  snatching  eagerly  at 
any  pleasure  that  offered,  even  when  it  implied  a  com- 
plete repudiation  of  the  morals  in  which  they  had  been 
bred.  They  probably  did  not  reason  much  about  the 
matter;  if  they  had  they  would  have  said  that  a  man 
about  to  die  in  the  fullness  of  his  unwasted  youth  was 
justified  in  getting  what  he  could  out  of  life  before 
death  took  all  from  him.  God  was  kind  and  would 
understand.  He  would  not  deal  harshly  with  the 
man  whose  pleasure  was  so  brief,  whose  sacrifice  of 
pleasure  was  so  imminent  and  final. 

He  could  understand  that  attitude  in  the  soldier. 
But  it  was  a  new  thing  to  find  this  attitude  in  a  woman 
like  Claire  Gunnison.  She  was  so  sweet  and  dainty 
and  desirable;  she  was  so  inherently  modest  in  spite 
of  the  boldness  of  her  opinions;  she  uttered  them 
with  such  innocence  that  he  wondered  if  she  could 
really  comprehend  all  their  implications. 

He  spent  all  his  time  with  her  now.  Through  the 
long  sunny  days  he  sat  beside  her,  never  tiring  of  her 
talk.  Night  by  night  they  watched  the  rising  moon, 
the  silvered  plains  of  ocean,  the  immutable  pageant 
of  the  sky.  He  found  in  her  a  quality  of  attraction 
which  he  had  found  in  no  other  woman.  Did  he  not 
think  of  Mary  Challoner?  Often,  and  at  times  with 
compunction.  He  found  himself  able  to  find  a  place 
for  both  in  the  hospitality  of  his  affections.  He  was 
a  little  shocked  at  the  discovery.  Had  he  been  chal- 
lenged, he  would  have  said  with  truth  that  his  heart 
was  given  to  Mary  Challoner.  He  had  no  intention 
of  dethroning  her;  but  in  Claire  Gunnison  he  found 


102  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

a  woman  so  different  in  every  quality  that  she  appealed 
to  him  in  a  new  way,  for  which  he  was  unprepared. 
She  was  a  woman  created  by  the  war;  he  was  a  man 
created  by  the  war — was  this  the  real  bond  between 
them? 

They  had  been  discussing  a  book  one  morning  which 
both  had  read.  It  was  in  the  main  a  violent  attack 
on  marriage.  He  imagined  she  would  agree  with  it, 
but  to  his  surprise  she  expressed  a  strong  dislike  for 
it. 

"Marriage  is  necessary  and  right,"  she  said,  "for 
most  women.  They  can  fulfil  their  lives  in  no  other 
way.  They  are  willing  to  accept  the  bondage  for  the 
sake  of  homes  and  children  and  respectability.  But 
they  are  not  the  only  women.  There  are  others  who 
are  too  proud  and  too  humble  to  marry." 

"Isn't  that  a  contradiction  in  terms?"  asked  Chal- 
mers. 

"Not  if  you  understand  what  I  mean.  They're  too 
proud  to  buy  homes  by  servitude,  and  they're  too 
humble  to  ask  from  men  a  great  price  for  what  they 
have  to  give.  They  don't  bargain.  They  do  really 
give." 

"And  you,  Claire?" 

"I  give,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice. 

The  last  night  at  sea  came  all  to  quickly.  They 
sat  together  once  more  on  deck,  already  conscious  of  a 
landward  breeze,  which  presaged  the  hour  of  separa- 
tion. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his,  and  looked  up  into  his 
face  with  gleaming  eyes.  \ 


THE  VOYAGE  103 

"Will  you  let  me  give?"  she  said. 

"No,  dear,  I  cannot." 

"The  Puritan  not  yet  quite  vanquished?"  she  said, 
with  a  faint  smile. 

"I  suppose  so." 

He  felt  himself  flushing.  He  had  not  blushed  since 
he  was  a  boy.  He  felt  ashamed  as  a  boy  is  ashamed 
of  anything  that  impugns  his  masculinity. 

"Well,  I  shall  say  God  bless  you,  dear,  just  the 
same.  I  shall  always  be  glad  because  I  met  you.  If 
you  should  ever  need  me " 

Her  voice  broke,  she  put  her  arm  round  his  neck 
and  drew  his  face  to  her. 

"Kiss  me,  please,"  she  said. 

It  was  so  they  parted. 


in 

He  slept  little  that  night. 

There  was  a  furious  heat  in  his  blood  that  kept  him 
wakeful,  the  long  repressed  passion  of  sex  which  over- 
mastered him.  His  mind  was  full  of  thoughts  of 
Claire  Gunnison.  The  tones  of  her  voice,  the  frag- 
rance of  her  hair,  the  warm  pressure  of  her  lips  on  his 
maddened  him.  Not  far  from  him,  in  her  white  cabin, 
she  slept  or  made  a  pretence  of  sleep  and  he  imagined 
lier  as  she  lay  there,  with  her  golden  hair  unloosed, 
and  her  bare  arms  stretched  out  in  invitation.  He 
knew  that  she  was  thinking  of  him,  that  she  was  sub- 
tly drawing  him  to  her,  that  he  had  but  to  walk  a 
dozen  yards  and  be  with  her.  He  could  see  the  look 


104  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

with  which  she  would  welcome  him,  the  grey-blue  eyes 
startled  and  glad,  the  beautiful  hands  that  would  draw 
his  head  down  to  her  warm  bosom.  All  that  delight 
was  his  for  the  taking.  It  was  offered  him  without 
scruple  and  without  condition.  Every  fibre  of  his 
flesh  cried  out  for  her,  and  he  had  refused  her. 

And  the  ferment  of  his  blood  was  equalled  by  the 
ferment  of  his  thought. 

Like  all  men,  whose  thoughts  are  normally  pure,  he 
had  had  his  dream  of  just  such  an  adventure  as  this. 
Puritan  as  he  was  by  birthright  and  training,  he  had 
yielded  to  the  emotion  of  such  dreams,  though  he  had 
always  shaken  himself  free  from  them  by  an  effort 
of  the  will  and  had  been  ashamed  to  recollect  them. 
He  had  pictured  the  adventure  happening  to  him  in 
just  such  a  way  as  it  had  happened,  in  a  ship  or  on  a 
train,  the  sudden  apparition  of  beauty,  the  dissolu- 
tion of  moral  barriers,  the  flowing  together  of  lives 
with  a  Greek  carelessness  of  consequence.  And  he 
knew  so  many  men  to  whom  such  adventures  had  ac- 
tually happened,  men  not  inferior  to  himself  in  all 
soldierly  qualities,  who  had  felt  themselves  released 
from  the  ordinary  conventions  by  the  peril  and  sacri- 
fice of  their  lives.  They  had  boldly  taken  the  brief 
bliss  which  life  offered  them,  justifying  themselves  by 
the  insecurity  of  all  bliss,  and  the  precariousness  of 
life.  Were  they  wise  or  foolish  in  their  tacit  assump- 
tion that  the  imminence  of  death  freed  them  from  or- 
dinary restraints,  and  that  God  would  be  charitable  to 
their  weakness? 

And  women  had  come  to  think  in  the  same  way — • 


THE  VOYAGE  105 

he  knew  that.  There  had  been  developed  in  them  an 
extraordinary  tenderness  toward  the  righting  man 
which  had  over-ruled  their  moral  scruples.  They 
could  deny  nothing  to  the  man  who  walked  before 
them  with  the  sacred  fillets  of  sacrifice  bound  round  his 
brow ;  he  had  not  even  to  ask  for  that  which  they  were 
eager  to  give.  They  recognised  no  evil  in  their  acts : 
they  were  acts  of  magnanimity.  In  Paris  and  London, 
on  the  great  routes  of  travel  between  the  two  capitals, 
in  the  hotels  and  even  in  the  houses  of  the  wealthy, 
these  women  were  to  be  found,  many  of  them  engaged 
in  some  form  of  patriotic  service.  They  had  no  rela- 
tion whatever  to  the  ordinary  courtesan,  who  follows 
in  the  trail  of  armies.  They  were  usually  women  of 
taste,  often  of  education  and  refinement.  But  they 
were  women  who  had  broken  away  from  the  old  re- 
straints, counting  them  negligible  under  the  stress  of 
new  emotions;  women  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  limit- 
less magnanimity,  who,  as  Claire  Gunnison  put  it,  did 
not  bargain  but  gave. 

The  quality  of  Claire  Gunnison  which  had  most  im- 
pressed him  was  her  essential  modesty.  It  confused 
and  confounded  all  his  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  to 
find  such  a  quality  in  her,  but  it  was  undoubted.  Her 
negation  of  morals  was  not  the  fruit  of  passion;  it 
was  the  result  of  a  deliberate  intellectual  process.  She 
had  reasoned  out  the  whole  question  of  woman's 
emancipation  for  herself,  and  had  pushed  it  to  its 
logical  conclusion.  She  saw  that  conclusion  as  the 
complete  possession  of  herself,  and  this  implied  the 
right  to  deal  with  herself  in  her  own  way,  to  give  or 


106  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

withhold  herself  as  her  own  taste  and  discrimination 
should  decide.  The  thought  of  any  wrong  done  to 
herself,  or  any  degradation  of  her  sex  by  the  act  she 
contemplated  was  a  conception  of  things  which  had 
not  entered  her  mind.  She  spoke  and  thought  like  an 
innocent  pagan,  to  whom  common  conventional  ideas 
of  right  and  wrong  were  unintelligible.  And  by  the 
simplicity  with  which  she  stated  her  position,  the  sin- 
cerity of  her  nature,  she  made  these  common  rules  of 
life  appear  stupid  and  absurd. 

O  how  sweet  and  desirable  she  appeared  to  this 
sleepless  man,  haunted  by  her  image!  How  easy  to 
go  to  her,  how  difficult  to  keep  away!  He  balanced 
the  shame  he  would  feel  in  going  to  her  against  the 
shame  he  had  felt  in  refusing  her,  and  the  scale  dipped 
now  on  one  side,  now  on  the  other.  The  austere 
Puritan  moralities  in  which  he  had  been  bred  would 
condemn  him  if  he  went;  her  distressed  eyes  filled  him 
with  a  more  vital  shame  for  staying  away. 

Those  who  have  never  known  such  hours  cannot 
comprehend  them.  Those  who  have  known  not  only 
no  deviation  from  the  narrow  path,  but  no  desire  of 
deviation,  will  not  understand  how  fair  and  desirable 
appears  the  flowery  land  seen  above  the  hedge  of  con- 
vention to  one  who  has  always  walked  with  his  eyes 
turned  down  on  the  hard  road  of  duty.  Still  less  will 
such  immaculate  persons  understand  how  the  long 
strain  of  dying  daily  on  a  battlefield,  when  suddenly 
removed,  brings  general  moral  relaxation;  how  man 
reacts  from  his  own  brief  nobleness,  so  that  the  greater 
the  height  of  nobleness  to  which  he  has  attained  the 


THE  VOYAGE  107 

more  liable  is  he  to  descend  to  a  corresponding  depth 
of  ignobility. 

Through  the  mind  of  Chalmers,  there  passed  like 
a  strain  of  music  certain  lines  of  Shelley's,  which  he 
had  learned  long  ago  when  he  was  sixteen.  He  had 
not  so  much  as  recollected  them  since  those  days  of 
dawning  adolescence.  They  rose  suddenly  now  from 
the  depths  of  his  mind,  as  though  they  had  waited, 
silent,  all  these  years  for  such  an  hour  as  this. 

I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee 
In  the  first  sweet  sleep  of  night, 
When  the  winds  are  breathing  low 
And  the  stars  are  shining  bright; 
I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee, 
And  a  spirit  in  my  feet 
Hath  led  me — who  knows  how, 
To  thy  chamber  window,  sweet. 

They  made  an  intolerable  appeal  to  his  senses.  They 
were  like  an  enervating  perfume  blowing  through  his 
soul.  He  rose  from  his  bed,  turned  up  the  light,  and 
stood  hesitating  with  his  hand  upon  the  door.  He 
opened  it  and  looked  out  into  the  dimly  lighted  corri- 
dor. The  frail  spirit  of  Shelley,  tenuous  as  moonlight, 
seemed  to  beckon  him.  Why  did  he  not  go?  He 
could  not  have  said.  But  he  did  not  go.  Another 
spirit,  the  spirit  of  inherited  morality,  of  old  and 
sacred  associations,  put  shackles  on  his  feet. 
"No,  no,"  he  cried.  "I  cannot  do  it." 
He  could  not,  and  that  was  all  he  knew  about  it. 
There  was  some  inexpugnable  quality  in  his  nature 
which  could  not  be  overcome. 

He  went  back  to  his  berth,  and  put  out  the  light. 
An  hour  later,  as  he  still  lay  sleepless,  another  thought 


io8  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

struck  his  mind  like  a  blow.  He  had  fought  for  a 
New  World;  if  he  failed  of  knightly  purity  he  would 
have  fought  in  vain.  No  New  World  could  be  built 
on  license.  The  spirit  in  a  soldier's  feet  must  not 
lead  him  to  the  bower  of  pleasure,  but  to  those  roads 
of  sacrifice  which  he  had  already  learned  to  tread  in 
pain,  and  self-denial,  and  discomfort.  By  no  other 
paths  could  the  New  World  be  found,  by  no  other 
spirit  could  it  be  established. 


IV 

He  saw  her  next  morning  for  a  few  minutes  just 
before  they  left  the  ship.  She  stood  upon  the  upper 
deck,  watching  the  unfolding  panorama  of  New  York, 
her  cheeks  flushed  with  the  sea-breeze,  her  hair  spark- 
ling in  the  sunlight  like  spun  gold.  She  met  his  gaze 
with  perfect  frankness.  It  was  he  who  was  timid  and 
embarrassed. 

There  was  a  sort  of  gentle  pity  in  her  attitude  to 
him,  a  solicitude  that  was  akin  to  motherliness.  She 
was  pained  by  his  embarrassment,  and  sought  to  put 
him  at  his  ease.  She  spoke  in  level  tones  of  the  beauty 
of  the  harbour,  the  cyclopean  walls  of  the  amazing  city 
that  rise  in  confused  magnificence  out  of  the  encircling 
waters,  the  sense  of  strangeness  and  vastness  which 
the  whole  scene  created.  At  last  he  grew  bold,  and 
lifted  his  eyes  to  hers.  Her  face  held  no  record  of 
the  emotions  she  had  felt  and  created  in  him.  Only 
the  least  trembling  of  the  lips,  the  slightest  flutter  of 


THE  VOYAGE  109 

the  eye-lids  above  the  grey-blue  eyes,  betrayed  the 
fact  that  these  emotions  were  not  dead. 

For  a  brief  moment  he  was  madly  insistent  to  revive 
them.  If  he  could  see  those  eyes  look  in  his  as  they 
had  done  the  night  before,  if  but  for  a  moment  they 
might  meet  his  in  the  divine  abandonment  of  love! 
He  felt  like  one  who  lets  an  inestimable  treasure  slip 
through  his  fingers,  because  he  has  not  the  strength 
to  close  them.  They  were  parting,  prosaically  and 
publicly,  with  idle  words  about  the  aspects  of  New 
York.  At  least  he  owed  her  gratitude  for  her  of- 
fered gift;  if  there  must  not  be  the  strained  embrace 
and  the  final  kiss  there  must  be  one  brief  heartfelt 
word  of  gratitude. 

She  read  his  thought,  and  gently  shook  her  head. 
She  understood  him,  and  knew  that  she  would  profit 
little  by  a  love  yielded  reluctantly.  She  made  al- 
lowance for  his  embarrassment,  comprehending  that 
it  was  moral  in  its  ultimate  quality.  The  ordinary 
woman  would  have  hardened  her  heart  with  pride, 
because  her  mind  would  dwell  upon  the  cruelty  of  his 
refusal.  But  Claire  Gunnison  was  of  a  different  or- 
der; because  her  nature  was  large  she  could  not  stoop 
to  petty  pride. 

"O,  Claire,"  he  began  with  stammering  lips.  But 
she  stopped  him  at  once,  with  a  hand  softly  laid  on 
his. 

"Do  not  speak,"  she  said.  "I  know  what  you 
would  say.  Let  it  be  unsaid.  One  thing  only  let  me 
repeat.  If  you  should  ever  need  me,  you  will  find 
me  your  true  friend." 


no 

"Where  shall  I  find  you?"  he  whispered. 

She  gave  him  a  card  with  an  address  on  East  Sixty- 
seventh  Street. 

"I  am  visiting  some  relatives,  and  shall  be  there  for 
the  winter." 

She  paused,  her  difficult  fortitude  shaken""for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  added  in  a  low  voice,  "Life  has  a  trick 
of  arranging  things  for  us  in  ways  we  don't  suspect, 
hasn't  it?  Perhaps  life  may  throw  us  together  again 
someday.  Who  can  tell?  If  it  should,  it  will  always 
be  a  gladness  for  me  to  meet  you." 

It  was  his  dismissal. 

He  held  her  hand  firmly  for  an  instant  and  turned 
away. 

A  few  minutes  later  the  great  ship  turned  to  her 
dock  like  a  homing  bird  to  its  nest,  and  in  the  crowd 
upon  the  docks  he  lost  sight  of  Claire  Gunnison. 


CHAPTER  V 
MARY  CHALLONER 


THE  white  house,  with  its  clear  windows,  in  its  beau- 
tiful setting  of  summer  woods,  appeared  to  be  just  as 
he  had  left  it  four  years  before.  He  saw  it  from  the 
train  five  minutes  before  he  arrived,  for  it  was  con- 
spicuous. It  was  long  and  low,  with  a  plain  fagade, 
a  roof  of  green  tiles,  broken  by  dormer  windows,  its 
walls  built  of  glittering  stucco,  subdued  by  the  growth 
of  rambler  roses,  which  splashed  its  hard  surface  with 
crimson.  The  roses  had  climbed  a  little  higher  in 
these  four  years.  They  had  reached  the  window  of 
the  room  he  used  to  occupy.  It  was  as  though  the 
crimson  of  war  had  broken  in  a  brief  wave  upon  the 
immaculate  whiteness  of  the  walls  and  left  them 
stained. 

At  the  little  station  a  long  line  of  automobiles  was 
drawn  up.  He  could  distinguish  his  uncle's  by  its 
chocolate  colouring,  picked  out  with  golden  lines.  To 
the  returned  adventurer  it  is  always  an  astonishment 
to  find  things  exactly  as  he  left  them.  He  expects, 
irrationally  enough,  no  doubt,  that  because  he  is 
changed  the  world  must  needs  be  changed;  he  cannot 

in 


ii2  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

understand  a  world  that  is  static.  Men  go  away,  suf- 
fer and  endure  great  things,  and,  returning,  find  the 
wheels  of  normal  life  moving  with  the  old  precision, 
in  the  old  grooves.  The  same  automobiles  ranged  in 
the  same  order,  the  same  city  men  escaping  from  the 
club-car — it  was  enough  to  make  him  rub  his  eyes 
and  wonder  if  he  had  ever  really  been  away. 

Chalmers  stepped  from  the  train  with  the  rest,  and, 
looking  down  the  long  narrow  platform,  saw  his  uncle 
approaching  him  with  outstretched  hands.  Hugh 
Challoner  was  a  handsome  man — it  was  a  tradition 
among  the  Challoners  that  all  the  men  were  distin- 
guished by  distinctness  of  feature  and  fine  carriage, 
and  all  the  women  by  beauty.  No  Challoner  had  ever 
married  an  ugly  or  a  plain  woman,  and  so  the  tradi- 
tion of  physical  grace  had  been  preserved  through 
four  generations.  There  was  a  French  strain  in  the 
blood,  which  perhaps  accounted  for  this  physical  dis- 
tinction. Hugh  Challoner,  at  a  fancy  dress  ball, 
dressed  in  Louis  XV  costume,  woujd  have  perfectly 
looked  the  part. 

Years  and  the  nature  of  his  occupation  had  a  little 
dulled  the  fine  lines  of  his  distinction.  He  was  a 
stock-broker  with  ambitions  to  become  a  money  mag- 
nate. Days  spent  in  the  fierce  perturbations  and 
anxieties  of  the  Exchange  had  left  their  mark  on  him; 
they  had  given  to  his  aquiline  features  a  certain  preda- 
tory aspect.  Chalmers  swiftly  noticed  that  his  fea- 
tures were  sharpened,  that  his  moustache  was  whiter, 
and  that  he  looked  much  older.  Nevertheless  his  air 


MARY  CHALLONER  113 

of  youthful  gaiety  persisted,  and  his  greeting  of  Chal- 
mers was  almost  boyish  in  its  eagerness. 

"So  you've  come  back,  John.  Thank  God,  for  that. 
And  I  can't  say  you  look  a  penny-piece  the  worse," 
he  cried.  "We're  mighty  glad  to  see  you,  for  there 
was  a  time  when  we  wondered  if  we'd  ever  see  you 
again." 

They  entered  the  motor,  which  swiftly  swung  down 
the  remembered  curve  of  the  white  road  and  began 
to  climb  the  hill  through  little  groves  of  fir.  It  passed 
between  the  tall  stucco  pillars  of  the  grounds,  and 
drew  up  on  the  terrace  of  the  house.  The  terrace, 
bathed  in  the  afternoon  sunshine,  was  swept  by  a  soft 
warm  breeze,  fragrant  with  roses  and  resinous  pine. 
The  eyes  of  Chalmers  sought  the  door  of  the  house 
which  stood  open,  revealing  the  cool  marble-floored 
hall,  with  its  oriental  rugs,  its  long  Italian  table  and 
its  vases  of  cut  flowers.  It  was  in  that  doorway  that 
Mary  Challoner  had  kissed  him  when  he  went  away. 
He  had  always  pictured  her  standing  there  to  wel- 
come him  on  his  return.  He  looked  now,  with  interro- 
gation in  his  eyes,  at  the  empty  doorway. 

"No,  Mary's  not  at  home,"  his  uncle  said  with  a 
laugh.  "The  fact  is  she  had  a  bridge  party  arranged 
for  this  afternoon  before  we  knew  you  were  coming. 
You  know  how  it  is — it  doesn't  do  to  fall  out  of  that 
sort  of  thing,  it  spoils  the  game  for  the  others,  so  she 
went.  She  will  be  back  to  dinner  at  seven." 

"So  bridge  goes  on  as  usual,  does  it?"  said  Chal- 
mers. 

"Of  course.     Why  not?    The  war's  over,  isn't  it, 


U4  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

and  we're  all  getting  back  to  normal  as  fast  as  we  can. 
And  Mary  plays  the  best  hand  of  any  of  the  girls  round 
here,  I  believe;  and  is  therefore  in  great  demand." 

"Of  course,"  he  answered.  "I  perfectly  under- 
stand." 

But  in  his  heart  he  did  not  understand.  He  was 
conscious  of  disappointment  and  resentment.  Of 
course,  he  reflected,  in  a  little  settlement  like  Melrose, 
social  engagements  counted  for  a  great  deal,  but  it  did 
seem  stupid  that  they  should  be  made  as  exigent  as  this. 
He  had  come  home  after  years  of  contest  with  death, 
and  Mary  was  not  there  to  meet  him — she  was  play- 
ing bridge — that  was  the  brutal  fact  on  which  his 
mind  fixed. 

He  took  his  bath,  made  his  simple  preparations  for 
dinner,  and  sat  at  the  open  window,  enjoying  the 
breeze  that  had  the  first  evening  freshness  of  the  hills 
in  it.  It  was  a  beautiful  world,  he  thought,  and  some- 
thing must  be  forgiven  those  who  dwelt  in  this  ex- 
quisite remoteness  from  the  thronged  life  of  men. 
How  should  they  understand  the  tragic  seriousness  of 
that  world  where  he  had  dwelt?  How  comprehend 
that  such  a  man  as  he  was  set  immense  value  on  such 
a  little  thing  as  being  met  with  instant  welcome  in  the 
house  to  which  he  had  returned — that  he  had  had 
dreams  of  such  a  moment  and  imagined  it  a  hundred 
times  in  that  barbaric  desolation  of  the  trenches?  A 
queer  world,  too,  where  people  rushed  back  to  trivial 
games  the  moment  a  tremendous  war  was  over,  as  if 
their  sole  desire  was  to  forget!  But  perhaps  he  was 
unjust,  he  thought,  unjust  to  Mary.  Perhaps  it  was 


MARY  CHALLONER  115 

an  instinct  of  maiden  modesty,  a  girlish  shyness,  that 
counselled  her  not  to  greet  him  in  the  moment  of  his 
return  at  the  door  where  they  had  parted.  She  de- 
sired some  less  public  place  and  hour.  She  was  afraid 
to  exhibit  her  emotion  on  that  open  stage.  Yes,  that 
must  be  the  reason,  and  because  he  was  eager  to  find 
excuses  for  her,  he  accepted  it  without  too  rigid  an 
examination.  His  spirits  rose,  and  he  whistled  gaily 
as  he  brushed  his  hair.  It  was  half-past  six,  and  in 
half  an  hour  he  would  meet  her. 

He  went  downstairs  and  found  his  uncle  in  the  li- 
brary. It  was  a  beautiful  room,  long  and  lofty,  built 
as  a  kind  of  annex  to  the  house.  Glass-doored  book- 
cases lined  the  walls;  above  them  were  antique  busts, 
not  reproductions,  but  genuine  specimens  of  ancient 
bronzes  and  sculpture.  Along  the  middle  of  the  room 
were  specimen  cases,  containing  good  examples  of 
ivory  carvings,  small  bronzes,  coins  and  a  few  ex- 
quisite Tanagra  figures.  At  the  far  end  of  the  room 
was  an  open  space  covered  with  rich  rugs,  three  or 
four  deep  leather  chairs,  and  a  remarkable  fireplace 
and  overmantel  of  carved  stone,  purchased  from  a  dis- 
mantled Italian  palace  in  Siena.  For  Hugh  Challoner, 
like  most  of  his  race,  had  a  genuine  love  of  art  and  an 
instinctive  discrimination  in  its  pursuit.  Forty  years 
before,  when  he  left  college,  he  had  wandered  widely 
over  Europe,  familiarising  himself  with  all  the  great 
galleries  of  art,  and  it  was  his  pride  to  point  out  in 
the  west  angle  of  his  room  a  small  window  composed 
of  rare  painted  glass  which  he  had  brought  home  in 
fragments  from  one  of  his  earliest  tours.  He  had 


li6  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

purchased  it  for  a  trifle  in  a  remote  French  town,  but 
it  may  be  doubted  if  anything  which  he  had  bought 
had  given  him  such  real  pride  and  pleasure,  for  it  was 
|his  first  acquisition,  and  was  not  bought  through 
agents,  as  most  of  his  later  collection  had  been,  but  on 
his  own  judgment. 

At  that  time  it  was  still  an  open  question  what  path 
in  life  he  would  choose.  He  was  strongly  inclined  to- 
ward a  college  professorship,  for  which  he  was  fitted 
by  his  literary  and  artistic  tastes.  But  on  his  return 
to  the  States  the  immense  industrial  and  financial  de- 
velopment of  America,  then  at  its  beginning,  attracted 
him  and  finally  captured  his  ambition.  He  recognised 
the  value  of  wealth,  the  more  so  because  the  fortunes 
of  his  family  had  declined.  At  first  he  told  himself 
that  he  would  content  himself  with  making  a  modest 
fortune,  and  then  retire  to  a  studious  leisure.  But  as 
he  began  to  succeed  in  life  his  definition  of  what  con- 
stituted a  moderate  fortune  was  continually  re-defined. 
The  age  of  the  millionaire  was  passing,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  age  of  the  multi-millionaire.  To  amass 
enough  for  moderate  luxury  no  longer  contented  him ; 
and  so  he  was  gradually  drawn  into  that  energetic  pur- 
suit of  wealth  for  its  own  sake  which  was  typical  of 
the  new  era  of  American  expansion.  The  dream  of 
studious  leisure  grew  faint  in  his  mind,  although  it 
never  wholly  faded.  He  still  promised  himself  some 
day  the  bliss  of  retirement  to  his  books  and  art  treas- 
ures. 

This  house  which  he  had  built  was  the  symbol  of 
this  hope,  the  library  particularly  so.  He  had  built 


MARY  CHALLONER  117 

it  at  the  suggestion  of  his  wife,  who  had  died  in  it 
ten  years  ago.  She  had  loved  the  silence  and  the 
beauty  of  the  hills  and  had  hated  the  clamor  and  con- 
fusion of  cities.  Built  at  first  as  a  summer  home  to 
please  her,  it  had  become  his  only  real  home.  When, 
at  her  desire,  he  had  sold  the  sombre  brownstone 
house  on  Sixty-seventh  Street  to  which  his  fortunes 
had  conducted  him,  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  his  dream 
of  studious  leisure  was  coming  true.  With  what 
delight  he  had  built  this  library,  planning  every  detail 
himself!  As  he  arranged  his  books,  his  costly  first 
editions  and  manuscripts,  his  bronzes  and  his  ivories, 
he  recaptured  much  of  his  first  fresh  joy  in  art. 
He  was  happier  than  he  had  ever  been  since  those  days 
of  student  touring  in  Europe,  when  every  road  he 
trod  was  arched  with  the  rainbow  of  romance.  And 
with  what  joy  he  had  seen  his  wife's  nature  expand, 
like  a  flower  that  had  at  last  found  its  right  soil,  in 
this  quiet  and  beautiful  environment.  She  seemed  to 
grow  younger  every  day  as  she  rode  along  the  green 
hills,  or  worked  in  her  garden;  her  beauty,  a  little 
worn  and  dulled  by  the  years  of  the  city,  came  back 
to  her  in  a  new  girlish  freshness  of  colour  and  cheerful 
spirits.  Often  before  the  log  fire  in  the  library  they 
had  sat  together  on  stormy  nights,  feeling  themselves 
drawn  closer  by  the  beating  of  the  rain  upon  the  win- 
dow, and  they  had  meditated  their  happiness.  And 
then  there  had  come  that  black  day  when  she  died.  A 
neglected  cold,  a  few  hours  of  acute  agony,  and  then, 
with  her  hand  in  his,  she  had  closed  her  eyes  like  a 
tired  child,  and  fallen  asleep  forever.  From  that 


Ii8  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

hour  the  world  of  mammon  had  drawn  him  back  to 
its  soul-stifling  embrace.  He  found  the  only  opiate 
for  memory  in  action,  in  an  incessant  prodigal  expendi- 
ture of  energy  for  objects  which  he  did  not  value,  but 
which  nevertheless  were  the  only  objects  that  allured 
him. 

One  promise  his  wife  had  extracted  from  him  just 
before  she  died,  that  Mary  should  never  live  in  cities. 
Emily  Challoner  had  discovered  in  the  peace  of  coun- 
try life  so  true  a  happiness  that  she  was  determined 
that  her  daughter  should  not  be  robbed  of  it.  What 
Emily  Challoner  did  not  foresee  was  that  these  lonely 
hills  of  Melrose  would  be  covered  in  a  few  years  with 
the  houses  of  the  rich,  that  they  would  become  a  small 
pagan  Capua  where  ease  produced  selfishness,  and 
brought  in  its  train  all  the  evil  tendencies  of  fatigued 
pleasure  constantly  in  quest  of  new  sensation,  which 
she  had  supposed  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  city. 


n 

In  his  evening  dress,  fresh  shaved  and  smiling, 
Hugh  Challoner  looked  much  more  of  a  leisured  gen- 
tleman than  a  New  York  stockbroker.  Anyone  who 
had  seen  him  in  these  surroundings  alone  would  have 
had  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  his  earliest  ideal  had 
been  a  cultured  and  intellectual  life.  Only  an  acute 
observer  would  have  recognised  in  the  deeply  lined 
face  and  the  haggard  eyes,  under  which  pouches  had 
begun  to  form,  indications  of  a  life  that  was  driven 
by  stronger  passions  than  the  pursuit  of  knowledge. 


MARY  CHALLONER  119 

But  to-night  he  looked  younger  than  his  years  be- 
cause he  was  happy.  He  was  genuinely  glad  to  wel- 
come back  John  Chalmers.  Chalmers's  father  had 
married  his  only  sister.  She  had  died  young  and  her 
husband  had  soon  followed  her,  so  that  the  boy  had 
become  in  an  unusually  intimate  degree  the  ward  of 
his  uncle.  Hugh  Challoner,  not  knowing  quite  what 
to  do  with  him,  had  allowed  him  when  his  college 
career  at  Yale  closed  to  spend  a  year  in  private  study 
and  travel,  while  he  found  out  what  career  he  would 
wish  to  follow.  Then  came  the  war,  and  John  Chal- 
mers had  been  among  the  first  to  enlist.  He  had  not 
asked  his  uncle's  permission;  he  had  gone  direct  to 
Ottawa  and  obtained  the  promise  of  a  commission  in 
the  Field  Artillery,  at  the  close  of  a  six  months'  train- 
ing at  Kingston.  At  first  his  uncle  was  seriously  of- 
fended, but  after  all  he  admired  John's  spirit,  and  soon 
became  proud  of  it  He  wore  a  single  star  service 
ribbon  in  his  coat  with  ostentation,  and  made  a  boast 
of  his  nephew's  heroism. 

"He  didn't  wait  for  his  own  country,"  he  used  to 
say,  "he  felt  the  thing  so  deeply  that  he  went  at  once. 
He's  a  true  Challoner." 

As  the  war  went  on  his  pride  in  his  nephew  grew. 
He  was  not  wholly  unaware  of  the  relations  that  ex- 
isted between  the  cousins.  He  suspected  that  they 
were  a  little  more  than  cousinly.  Well,  where  could 
Mary  find  a  better  husband,  a  man  more  gallant,  or 
with  a  better  record?  Yet  at  the  back  of  his  mind 
lingered  a  certain  doubt,  like  a  small  dark  cloud  on  the 
horizon  of  a  summer  sky.  John  Chalmers  had  an  inde- 


120  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

pendence  of  character  which  made  it  difficult  to  predi- 
cate his  actions.  He  had  enlisted  without  any  consulta- 
tion with  his  uncle,  and  although  the  thing  had  turned 
out  admirably,  it  indicated  a  disconcerting  quality  of 
initiative.  Of  course  there  could  be  no  question  of 
marriage  between  the  cousins  unless  John  had  some 
secure  means  of  making  a  livelihood. 

Hugh  Challoner  had  thought  over  that  situation  a 
good  deal,  and  it  was  in  his  thoughts  now  as  he  stood 
in  the  quiet  library,  waiting  for  his  nephew.  He 
would  have  to  talk  to  John  about  it,  not  immediately, 
of  course,  but  as  soon  as  a  fitting  opportunity  oc- 
curred. He  was  prepared  to  act  generously.  The 
most  practicable  thing  seemed  to  be  a  position  in  his 
own  firm,  which  would  lead  to  a  partnership  in  due 
course.  That  would  be  an  ideal  arrangement,  and 
straightway  his  mind  was  obsessed  by  a  sudden  de- 
lightful vision  of  John  and  Mary  married,  living  in 
the  house  at  Melrose,  and  himself  gradually  withdraw- 
ing from  business  to  realise  that  long  postponed  dream 
of  cultured  leisure  among  his  books.  If  the  frail  and 
lovely  ghost  of  Emily  Challoner  still  haunted  the 
library  which  both  he  and  she  had  loved,  and  could 
discover  by  some  magic  of  the  spirit  the  movement 
of  his  thoughts,  he  was  quite  sure  she  would  approve 
such  a  programme. 

But  here  the  little  dark  cloud  on  the  edges  of  his 
mind  became  larger.  How  did  he  know  that  his 
nephew  would  care  to  enter  the  firm  ?  He  might  have 
quite  different  ideals  of  life — as  different  as  his  own 
had  been  in  those  remembered  youthful  days  when  he 


MARY  CHALLONER  121 

had  coveted  a  college  professorship  as  the  most  satisfy- 
ing of  careers.  And  how  did  he  know  that  there  was 
anything  between  the  cousins  but  cousinly  regard? 
Mary  had  given  no  hint — at  least  to  him — of  the  things 
that  went  on  in  her  heart.  If  her  mother  had  lived, 
no  doubt  the  girl  would  have  confided  in  her,  but  that 
kind  of  confidence  was  rarely  given  to  a  father.  He 
remembered,  with  sudden  confusion,  that  after  all  he 
knew  very  little  of  her  real  character.  He  was  away 
all  day  in  the  city,  often  absent  for  many  days  on 
long  journeys  connected  with  his  investments;  he  was 
a  transient  guest  in  his  own  house  rather  than  a  resi- 
dent. She  sat  before  him  at  the  breakfast  table  in  her 
fresh  morning  dress;  she  swam  into  the  room  each 
evening  in  her  diaphanous  dinner  gown;  but  of  all  the 
small  acts  and  pursuits  which  made  her  daily  life  he 
had  but  the  faintest  surmise.  She  rode,  of  course, 
and  visited  among  her  friends,  and  played  tennis  or 
bridge,  and  enjoyed  social  popularity.  During  the 
war  she  had  substituted  Red  Cross  work  for  bridge, 
as  everyone  had  done,  but  the  new  employment  had 
revealed  no  new  quality  in  her  character.  He  began 
to  suspect  that  he  knew  as  little  of  her  real  character 
as  he  did  of  his  nephew's — both  moved  in  worlds  un- 
realised by  him. 

"Well,  well,"  he  thought,  "I  must  not  be  hasty.  I 
must  wait  upon  events.  The  only  thing  that  is  cer- 
tain to  happen  is  the  unexpected." 


122 


III 

The  entrance  of  Chalmers  into  the  room  broke  the 
thread  of  these  meditations. 

He  wore  his  uniform,  the  smartly  cut  tunic  of  the 
British  Artillery  officer,  with  its  Sam  Brown  belt, 
its  buttons  shining  like  gold,  the  riding  breeches  lined 
with  white  buckskin  at  the  inner  bend  of  the  knees, 
and  long  highly-polished  brown  boots.  Challoner 
gave  him  a  glance  of  proud  approval.  There  could 
be  no  doubt  that  he  looked  a  fine  figure  of  a  man,  tall, 
graceful,  erect,  well-poised,  with  his  dark  handsome 
face  and  close-cropped  well-shaped  head. 

"I'm  glad  you've  not  changed  your  uniform.  I 
thought  perhaps  you  would,"  said  Challoner. 

"I  couldn't,"  said  Chalmers  with  a  smile.  "I've 
nothing  else  to  wear  at  present,  and  I've  had  no  time 
to  get  civilian  togs." 

"Those  are  not  the  clothes  you  wore  when  you  were 
wounded,  eh?" 

"O,  dear  no.  They  were  torn  to  rags,  and  vilely 
dirty.  They  disappeared  in  the  hospital — were  prob- 
ably burned — it's  all  they  were  fit  for.  This  is  a 
new  uniform  I  had  made  in  Bond  Street  on  my  last 
leave  before  I  was  pipped." 

"I  wonder  you  didn't  keep  them,  just  for  reminis- 
cence." 

"I  couldn't.  Besides  they  had  become  too  foul  for 
anyone  to  keep.  During  the  last  offensive  I  didn't 
have  my  boots  off  for  three  weeks,  and,  of  course, 


MARY  CHALLONER  123 

I  slept  in  my  clothes.  You  can  imagine  what  they 
were  like." 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't." 

"Well,  picture  the  ragged  scarecrow  you  put  in  the 
cornfields — we  looked  something  like  that.  A  decent 
tramp  wouldn't  have  exchanged  clothes  with  most  of 
us.  Try  sleeping  in  a  muddy  ditch  for  a  month,  and 
having  no  water  to  wash  with  in  the  morning.  We 
did  that  for  three  weeks  on  end,  and  somehow  didn't 
mind  it  at  all.  It  was  all  part  of  the  game  and  jolly 
good  fun." 

"Tell  me  about  it,  John?  I'm  afraid  I've  no  real 
picture  of  war,  in  spite  of  all  the  newspapers  have  told 
us," 

"The  newspapers!  Why,  what  do  they  know?  I 
suppose  you  refer  to  the  letters  of  war-correspondents. 
Well,  they're  good  enough  in  their  way,  some  of  them 
quite  excellent  pieces  of  descriptive  writing.  But  the 
war-correspondent  rarely  gets  nearer  than  two  or 
three  miles  from  the  actual  fighting.  He  came  as 
near  as  he  could,  but  the  best  he  could  do  was  to  pick 
up  incidents  from  the  men,  and  weave  them  into  a 
story.  It  was  a  very  good  little  story,  but  it  wasn't 
war.  It  was  war  reduced  to  rhetoric,  not  war  in  its 
filthy  abomination,  its  damned  reality  of  blood  and 
ghastly  wounds  and  putrid  flesh.  It  was  no  more  like 
the  real  thing  than  this  new  tunic,  fresh  from  a  Bond 
Street  tailor,  is  like  the  bloody  rags,  rotten  and  ver- 
minous, that  they  cut  from  my  body  when  they  took 
me  to  the  hospital." 

"And  you've  been  through  all  that,  my  dear  boy." 


124  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Of  course,  and,  as  I  said,  didn't  mind  it  at  all.  I 
suppose  decency — the  decency  of  a  well-washed  body 
and  clean  clothes — is  after  all  an  artificial  thing.  It's 
not  really  essential.  It's  external  to  a  man's  real  life. 
And  the  soldier  soon  learns  to  despise  externals.  He 
is  dealing  with  essential  things,  courage,  duty,  devo- 
tion to  one's  comrades — all  that  sort  of  thing.  What's 
the  use  of  grousing  because  you  can't  get  water  to 
wash  your  face  with  when  you  know  that  in  the  next 
ten  minutes  you  may  be  dead?  That's  how  I  used  to 
feel.  And  to  tell  the  truth,  I  feel  in  that  way  still." 

"But  you  don't  despise  decency,  really — — " 

"No,  I'm  glad  enough  to  be  clean  again,  and  there's 
nothing  on  earth  that  seems  to  have  a  finer  music  in 
it  than  the  sound  of  pure  water  running  into  a  white 
bath-tub.  But  what  I  mean,  uncle,  is  this:  all  this 
elaborate  comfort  of  America,  this  desire  to  surround 
oneself  with  things  that  produce  physical  pleasure, 
seems  to  me  just  a  little  contemptible.  I  don't  quite 
know  how  I  am  ever  going  to  fit  into  it  again." 

"Well,  I  guess  that  will  come  in  time.  In  a  day  or 
two,  when  you're  rested,  that's  a  subject  I  want  to 
talk  about  with  you.  No,  no,  not  now,  of  course.  At 
present  my  mind  is  full  of  one  thing  only — the  gladness 
of  getting  you  back  alive  and  well.  And  that  re- 
minds me  you  must  be  hungry  and  its  already  past 
the  hour  for  dinner." 

He  pushed  the  button  of  the  electric  bell,  and  a  dis- 
creet butler  entered. 

"Rawlinson,  isn't  it  time  dinner  was  served?" 

"It  is,  sir.     But  we  didn't  know  whether  you  wanted 


MARY  CHALLONER  125 

it  served  before  Miss  Mary  came.  I  understood  she 
was  to  return  at  seven,  sir." 

"Of  course,  you're  perfectly  right.  We'll  wait  a 
little  longer.  You  can  bring  the  cocktails  in  here, 
Rawlinson." 

"Mary  has  many  virtues,  but  I'm  afraid  she  doesn't 
possess  the  virtue  of  punctuality,"  said  her  father. 
"And  when  she  is  with  her  friends  the  Smithsons,  she 
is  apt  to  forget  time." 

"Who  are  they?"  said  Chalmers,  "I  don't  seem  to 
remember  anyone  of  that  name." 

"New  people,  my  boy.  Not  quite  our  kind,  I  ad- 
mit, but  very  decent  folk  and  quite  rich.  Smithson 
bought  the  Mil  ford  place  in  the  second  year  of  the 
war — you  remember  the  Mil  fords.  It  was  a  big, 
roomy  house;  rather  ugly  and  pretentious,  I  always 
thought  it,  but  the  Smithsons  have  built  on  to  it  and 
made  the  old  house  over,  so  that  now  it's  a  sort  of 
palace.  They've  got  a  vast  room  like  a  hotel  foyer, 
with  an  organ  in  it,  and  a  marble  swimming  tank,  and 
a  ball-room,  if  you  please.  The  war  has  made  Smith- 
son  rich — munitions  and  that  sort  of  thing,  you 
know." 

"What  does  Mary  find  to  attract  her  in  such  peo- 
ple?" said  Chalmers,  with  a  jealous  pang. 

"Well,  the  fact  is  they're  very  hospitable,  very. 
They  like  to  gather  all  the  young  people  of  the  dis- 
trict round  them — the  place  not  only  looks  like  a  pub- 
lic building  but  it's  used  as  one.  The  Red  Cross  used 
to  meet  there  three  times  a  week,  and  so  they  all  got 
into  the  habit  of  meeting  there.  As  soon  as  Smith- 


126  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

son  knows  you  are  home,  he'll  want  to  meet  you.  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  he'll  get  up  some  sort  of  recep- 
tion and  want  you  to  speak  at  it." 

"I'm  not  a  speaker,  uncle.  I  hope  Smithson  will 
do  nothing  of  the  kind." 

"Well,  I  rather  think  Mary  would  be  pleased  if  you 
did  it.  She's  so  proud  of  you.  You  must  remember 
that  you're  a  little  bit  of  a  celebrity  to  the  Melrose 
folk,  and  it's  quite  natural  that  Mary  should  wish  to 
shine  in  your  borrowed  glory." 

"I've  seen  too  many  men  lose  everything  by  the  war 
— health,  limbs,  life — that  I've  not  much  desire  to  meet 
people  who've  made  money  by  the  war,  uncle.  Such 
people  appear  to  me  indecent." 

"O,  come  now,  you  must  get  out  of  that  way  of 
thinking,"  said  Challoner,  with  a  touch  of  hardness 
in  his  voice.  "If  it  comes  to  that  I've  made  money 
myself.  I  happened  to  buy  Bethlehem  Steel  shares 
when  they  were  as  low  as  60,  and  I  sold  out  for  over 
500.  You'll  hardly  blame  me  for  that,  I  hope.  It 
might  have  happened  quite  the  other  way.  I  might 
have  lost  money  as  easily  as  made  it — indeed  a  great 
many  of  my  holdings  did  suffer  serious  depreciation. 
And  as  for  Smithson,  I  suppose  he  saw  his  chance 
and  took  it,  as  any  shrewd  man  of  business  would, 
and  who's  to  blame  him?" 

Chalmers  made  no  reply.  He  did  not  wish  to  of- 
fend his  uncle,  especially  in  this  hour  of  glad  return. 
But  at  the  back  of  his  mind  rose  the  repulsive  figure 
of  Bulstrode,  whose  apology  for  making  money  by 
the  war  was  after  all  not  essentially  different  from  his 


MARY  CHALLONER  127 

uncle's.  He  had  treated  Bulstrode  with  indignant 
contempt,  and  had  visited  upon  him  the  punishment  of 
cruel  ostracism.  Was  Smithson  any  better?  And 
how  could  Challoner  avoid  the  same  category?  Of 
course,  Challoner  was  a  very  different  man  from  Bui- 
strode.  He  was  a  gentleman,  a  man  of  physical  dis- 
tinction and  high  social  ideals,  a  man  of  intellect  and 
culture;  yet  he  had  done,  without  the  least  idea  of  any- 
thing blameworthy  in  his  conduct,  much  the  same  kind 
of  thing  as  Bulstrode.  Was  there  something  in  the 
pursuit  of  wealth  that  was  inherently  hostile  to  fine 
ideals?  Did  the  desire  for  money  corrupt  inevitably 
the  finest  natures?  Or  was  man  after  all  so  essen- 
tially a  creature  of  a  dual  nature,  that  he  could  keep 
his  nobilities  and  ignobilities  apart,  locked  in  separate 
water-tight  compartments?  It  looked  like  it,  and  he 
reflected,  with  a  sense  of  the  inexplicable  irony  of  life, 
that  perhaps  the  persecuted  Bulstrode  was  also  in  his 
own  circle  a  very  hospitable  man,  who  loved  to  gather 
young  folk  around  him  as  Smithson  did,  and  make 
his  house  the  hospice  of  their  pleasure. 

The  library  clock  struck  eight.  Again  Challoner 
touched  the  electric  bell,  and  the  soft-footed  Rawlin- 
son  appeared. 

"We  won't  wait  any  longer,  Charles,"  said  Chal- 
loner. "Tell  them  to  serve  dinner." 

He  was  evidently  vexed  at  the  absence  of  Mary. 

The  two  men  entered  the  plain  oak-panelled  room, 
with  its  softly-shaded  lights,  its  display  of  exquisitely 
white  napery  and  gleam  of  cut  glass. 

There  is  a  kind  of  sacrament  in  a  shared  meal. 


128  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

When  men  break  bread  together  they  draw  closer  to- 
gether in  spirit.  The  slight  tension  which  had  de- 
veloped between  Chalmers  and  his  uncle  disappeared 
under  the  stimulus  of  warm  food  and  good  wine. 
But  at  the  back  of  the  thoughts  of  each  was  the  irri- 
tation of  Mary's  absence.  Her  empty  chair  faced 
Chalmers  on  the  other  side  of  the  table.  This  was  not 
at  all  the  kind  of  meal  that  he  had  pictured  to  himself 
in  those  long  lonely  hours  of  discomfort  in  the 
trenches  and  of  watching  at  observation  posts.  In  his 
imaginings  he  had  scarcely  visualised  his  uncle;  but 
he  had  always  seen  Mary,  with  her  face  flushed  with 
happiness,  talking  gaily,  with  sympathetic  interest,  and 
occasionally  rewarding  him  with  a  shy  glance  of  ten- 
der feeling — a  Desdemona  listening  with  charmed  ears 
to  her  adventurous  Othello. 

The  telephone  rang  in  the  hall.  Challoner  left  the 
table  to  receive  the  message. 

He  returned  a  few  minutes  later  with  an  air  of  un- 
concealed vexation. 

"Mary  is  staying  to  dinner  with  the  Smithsons,"  he 
said  curtly.  "It's  very  thoughtless  of  her.  And  I'm 
sorry.  She  won't  be  in  before  ten  o'clock." 

"In  that  case,"  said  Chalmers  quietly,  "I  think  I 
will  go  to  bed  early.  I'm  very  tired,  and  you  know 
I  am  still  medically  ranked  as  a  convalescent." 

"I'm  very  sorry,  my  boy.  I'm  afraid  you're  disap- 
pointed." 

Chalmers  made  no  reply.  The  meal  progressed  in 
silence  for  some  minutes;  then,  gradually  he  and  his 


MARY  CHALLONER  129 

uncle  drifted  into  small  talk  about  family  affairs,  in 
which  neither  of  them  was  really  interested. 

At  half-past  nine  Chalmers  went  to  his  room,  and 
his  uncle  made  no  effort  to  detain  him. 


IV 

In  the  quiet  of  his  room  he  gave  way  to  an  agita- 
tion of  thought  which  he  had  restrained  and  concealed 
in  the  presence  of  his  uncle.  He  had  so  long  pictured 
this  evening  and  in  such  very  different  colours.  He 
could  not  imagine  himself  acting  as  Mary  had  done, 
and  he  could  not  comprehend  the  motives  of  her  ac- 
tion. His  fond  theory  that  she  had  postponed  her 
meeting  with  him  through  an  access  of  modesty  was 
no  longer  tenable.  If  she  had  really  loved  him  she 
would  have  been  eager  to  meet  him.  And  even  if  she 
had  found  herself  entangled  in  a  foolish  social  engage- 
ment, from  which  escape  was  difficult,  there  was  no 
excuse  for  staying  to  dinner  with  ihe  Srnithsons. 

Men  did  not  act  in  that  way,  he  told  himself.  And 
yet,  when  he  came  to  think  of  it,  he  could  recollect  in- 
stances to  the  contrary.  He  remembered,  with  a 
growing  wave  of  humiliation  and  self-pity,  that  even 
in  his  friendship  with  men,  he  had  often  found  himself 
giving  more  than  he  received.  He  had  had  the  ex- 
perience more  than  once  of  postponing  all  his  engage- 
ments to  meet  a  friend,  who  never  came ;  who  went  off 
somewhere  else,  caught  in  the  casual  wave  of  pleasure- 
seeking,  and  lightly  excused  his  defection  on  the 
ground  of  forgetfulness.  He  began  to  draw  a  self- 


CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

pitying  picture  of  himself  as  a  man  who  for  some  ob- 
scure reason  could  not  command  fidelity  in  love.  Was 
there  some  fatal  deficiency  in  himself,  some  lack  of 
attraction,  perhaps  some  fundamental  repulsion,  which 
made  him  unacceptable  ?  Was  it  his  curious  and  ironic 
destiny  always  to  give  more  love  than  he  received? 
Was  Mary,  after  all,  in  her  frivolous  disregard  of 
him,  obeying  some  obscure  natural  law,  indefinable  in- 
deed to  both  of  them,  but  possessed  of  a  secret  au- 
thority and  compulsion  ? 

And  then,  as  he  proceeded  in  this  self-torturing  in- 
quisition, he  told  himself  that  most  probably  he  was 
quite  mistaken  in  his  estimate  of  that  parting  em- 
brace years  before,  when  he  left  for  the  war.  He  had 
really  built  all  his  future  on  a  kiss,  and  what  folly  it 
seemed.  Of  course,  in  such  a  moment  of  over- 
wrought emotion,  a  woman's  heart  ruled  her.  No 
doubt  Mary  had  a  haunting  vision  as  she  kissed  him  of 
the  perils  to  which  he  went,  the  wounds,  the  maiming, 
perchance  death  itself.  Was  it  because  she  believed 
he  would  never  come  back  that  she  allowed  herself  the 
poignant  intensity  of  that  embrace?  Was  the  kiss 
like  a  kiss  given  to  the  dead,  sacramental,  the  seal  of 
eternal  separation,  unrestrained  because  there  was  no 
peril  of  misunderstanding,  the  brief  effluence  of  an 
emotion  which  was  never  meant  to  be  repeated?  If  that 
was  her  meaning,  here  at  least  was  a  reasonable  ex- 
planation of  her  conduct  No  wonder  she  felt  awk- 
ward and  embarrassed  at  the  thought  of  meeting  him, 
postponed  the  difficult  hour,  dreaded  it  perhaps,  and 
would  have  avoided  it  altogether  if  she  could. 


MARY  CHALLONER  131 

Yet  all  the  while,  as  he  indulged  himself  in  these 
bitter  thoughts,  he  was  listening  eagerly  for  her  re- 
turn. He  had  opened  the  windows  wide,  and  from 
time  to  time  went  to  them,  looking  out  on  that  remem- 
bered grouping  of  soft-rounded  hills,  plumed  with  lit- 
tle coppices  of  fir,  over  which  the  moon  sailed  in  slow 
majesty,  reticent  and  indifferent.  His  ear  caught 
every  sound  in  the  quiet  business  of  that  night  world, 
the  distant  barking  of  a  dog,  the  rustle  of  leaves,  the 
slow  movement  of  cattle  in  the  pastures,  the  intimate 
chatter  of  the  little  brook  that  hurried  through  the 
valley.  The  stillness  was  so  great  that  he  could  hear 
the  falling  of  the  over-blown  roses  round  the  window, 
as  the  soft  fingers  of  the  night  breeze  moved  among 
them.  He  had  switched  off  the  electric-light,  the  bet- 
ter to  discover  that  beloved  landscape.  When  she 
came  he  would  see  her,  but  she  would  not  see  him. 
Perhaps  when  he  saw  her,  her  face  would  reveal  the 
real  nature  of  her  thoughts. 

At  length  he  heard  the  distant  purr  of  an  auto- 
mobile moving  swiftly  on  the  leafy  roads.  He  could 
see  its  lights  twinkling  like  a  double  star;  it  entered 
the  driveway,  and  stopped  beneath  the  porch.  He 
could  see  her  white  dress,  and  he  heard  her  cheerful 
voice.  Did  she  look  up  at  the  window  where  he  stood 
concealed?  He  thought  she  did.  But  the  whole 
scene  was  momentary.  The  automobile  glided  away, 
with  the  sharp  resonance  of  a  closed  door.  He  heard 
Challoner's  voice,  a  little  gruff  and  vexed,  and  her 
reply,  "I'm  sorry  to  be  late,  father."  Then  the  light 
was  extinguished  in  the  porch,  and  the  interrupted 


132  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

silence  of  the  night  flowed  back,  and  settled  down 
again. 

"Ah,  it  was  impossible,"  he  told  himself,  "to  mis- 
take the  sincerity  of  that  girlish  voice,  the  joyous 
freshness  of  its  accents." 

How  churlish  he  had  been  to  grudge  her  an  even- 
ing's happiness,  or  to  think  mean  thoughts  about  her ! 


He  met  her  at  breakfast  next  morning. 

His  first  impression  was  that  she  had  travelled  a 
long  stage  toward  self-possessed  womanhood  since 
they  had  parted.  He  remembered  her  as  quiet  and 
shy,  moving  silently  about  the  house  like  one  absorbed 
in  her  own  thoughts,  speaking  little,  but  conveying  the 
impression  of  a  watchful  intelligence  carefully  weigh- 
ing and  estimating  the  opinions  of  others.  He  had 
always  thought  this  quietness  of  hers  an  adorable  dis- 
tinction. It  suited  her  beauty,  the  pure  oval  of  her 
face,  her  dark  eyes  and  candid  brow,  her  mass  of 
brown  hair  simply  coiled  above  the  slender  whiteness 
of  her  neck,  the  innocent  and  inquiring  aspect  of  a 
young  girl  to  whom  the  nature  of  life  was  mysteri- 
ous. That  was  the  face  he  had  carried  in  his  thoughts. 
It  had  appealed  to  him  by  a  quality  of  remoteness,  the 
kind  of  look  which  the  great  painters  of  the  Renais- 
sance had  immortalised  in  their  madonnas,  the  look 
of  the  woman  who  ponders  unspeakable  things  in  her 
heart 

It  was  with  a  sudden  shock  of  surprise  that  he  no- 


MARY  CHALLONER  133 

ticed  that  this  look  was  quite  gone.  The  essential  out- 
lines of  her  beauty  were  unchanged,  but  the  aspect  was 
different.  It  was  as  though  a  landscape  which  had 
been  last  seen  bathed  in  misty  morning  light  now  ap- 
peared in  sharp  outline  under  the  harsh  blaze  of  noon. 
She  was  no  longer  one  who  pondered  things  in  her 
heart,  to  whom  the  meaning  of  life  was  secret;  she  had 
unlocked  the  secret.  That  cloudy  look  of  medita- 
tion in  the  dark  eyes  had  vanished;  they  were  alert 
and  sparkling.  She  moved  across  the  room  with  the 
poise  of  social  grace,  with  complete  self-possession, 
and  laid  a  cool  slim  hand  in  his,  and  spoke  in  meas- 
ured kindness.  Only  in  a  slow  flush  was  there  any 
sign  that  she  recollected  the  former  hopes  and  adora- 
tions of  her  inexperience. 

She  welcomed  him,  of  course,  and  went  on  to  speak 
in  gentle  deprecation  of  her  absence  in  the  hour  of 
his  arrival. 

"If  I  had  known  you  were  coming  last  night,  of 
course  I  should  have  been  here,"  she  said,  "but  we  only 
got  your  wire  in  the  afternoon,  and  then  it  was  too 
late.  And  there's  the  most  dreadful  delay  in  getting 
telegrams  through,  isn't  there,  father?" 

Challoner  nodded. 

"The  effect  of  Government  ownership,  my  dear." 

"Ah,  I  really  mustn't  let  father  discuss  that  ques- 
tion," she  said  gaily,  "or  he'll  never  stop.  Govern- 
ment ownership  is  his  pet  aversion." 

"It's  the  aversion  of  every  sensible  man,  who 
knows  perfectly  well  that  it  means  the  worst  kind  of 
confusion  and  inefficiency." 


134  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"There,  he  is  going  to  discuss  it,"  she  retorted,  "and 
you  mustn't  encourage  him,  John.  Besides,  the  war's 
over,  isn't  it?  And  we  want  to  forget  the  war,  don't 
we?" 

The  lightness  of  her  tone  hurt  him. 

"Forget  the  war,"  he  said,  "I'm  not  sure  that  Amer- 
ica has  ever  remembered  it." 

"Why,  how  can  you  say  that?"  she  retorted. 

"I  mean  that  America's  got  off  cheaply.  She  has 
not  paid  the  price  that  France  and  Great  Britain  have 
paid.  Therefore,  she  can't  remember  in  the  way  that 
they  remember." 

"John's  quite  right,"  said  Challoner.  "We  have  got 
off  cheaply.  But  just  the  same  it's  a  good  thing  to 
come  back  to  normal  life  again  as  soon  as  we  can." 

"Of  course.  That's  what  I  meant.  Mr.  Smithson 
was  saying  the  same  thing  last  night.  And,  by  the 
bye,  John,  Mr.  Smithson  is  very  proud  of  what  you 
have  done,  and  he's  most  anxious  to  hear  you  speak 
about  it.  He  will  very  likely  come  over  to-day  and 
try  to  arrange  for  you  to  speak  at  his  house.  I  hope 
you'll  do  it." 

"Do  you  wish  it,  Mary?" 

"Why,  I  should  be  proud  and  delighted,  you  may 
be  sure." 

These  were  the  first  words  she  had  spoken  which 
had  the  note  of  personal  feeling  in  them.  "Proud  and 
delighted" — they  rang  in  his  mind  like  a  chime  of 
bells.  This  was  surely  the  language  Desdemona 
must  have  used  to  Othello.  Hope  began  to  stir  in  his 
heart.  His  sense  of  alteration  in  her  was  diminished. 


MARY  CHALLONER  135 

After  breakfast  they  strolled  into  the  garden.  It 
was  a  perfect  June  morning,  fresh  and  fragrant. 
The  summer  heat  had  not  yet  come,  only  the  first 
warmth  which  called  out  the  life  of  all  growing  things. 
The  rose-garden,  which  Emily  Challoner  had  planted 
and  nurtured  with  so  much  care,  was  at  its  best.  It 
occupied  the  level  summit  of  a  ridge,  from  which  the 
entire  valley  could  be  seen  like  an  aviator's  map,  with 
its  white  winding  road,  its  lanes  leading  to  snug 
farmhouses,  its  gleaming  brook,  its  clustered  elms  and 
willows  in  the  pasture-land,  and,  bounding  all,  the 
wide  circle  of  the  hills. 

"How  beautiful  it  looks!"  exclaimed  Chalmers. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  it  is  beautiful,"  she  said  with  a 
shrug  of  her  shoulders.  "But  a  little  tiresome,  don't 
you  think?" 

"Tiresome?  I  don't  think  I  could  ever  find  it  tire- 
some. It  makes  me  feel  that  I  should  be  content  to 
live  and  die  here." 

"You'd  die,  all  right,"  she  said.  "You'd  die  of 
having  nothing  to  do." 

"But  I  thought  you  loved  the  place,  Mary.  I 
always  think  of  you  as  being  so  happy  here  that  I 
can't  picture  you  living  anywhere  else." 

"O,  I  love  it,  or  I  suppose  I  do,"  she  said.  "But 
you  may  grow  tired  of  even  things  and  persons  you 
love,  if  you  see  nothing  else.  One  loves  a  place  most 
which  is  only  seen  at  intervals." 

"You  said  persons,  too.  I  don't  think  you  meant 
that." 

"Indeed  I  did.     The  same  face  at  the  end  of  the 


136  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

table  every  day  for  years  and  years  must  grow  terribly 
boresome." 

"Not  if  you  love  it." 

"Yes,  even  if  you  love  it,  even  if  it's  beautiful.  It 
grows  stale,  and  you  long  to  see  something  different, 
if  it's  only  to  compare  them.  When  you  know  every- 
thing there  is  to  know  about  a  landscape,  every  shape 
and  colour,  or  in  a  person  every  line  and  wrinkle,  and 
all  the  little  tricks  of  speech  and  manner,  you  feel  like 
shrieking — because  you  can't  lose  them." 

She  laughed  as  she  spoke,  but  there  was  a  note  of 
bitterness  in  her  gaiety. 

"I  don't  think  I  could  ever  feel  like  that,"  he  said. 

"No?  But  then  you've  had  adventures,  haven't 
you?  I  haven't.  Won't  you  tell  me  about  them?" 

He  began  to  speak  to  her  of  his  first  experiences  in 
France,  but  her  eyes  wandered. 

"I  don't  think  I  can  make  you  understand,"  he  said. 

"Am  I  so  very  unintelligent  ?"  she  said  with  a  mock- 
ing smile. 

"I  didn't  mean  that,"  he  replied.  "What  I  meant 
was  that  only  those  can  realise  what  war  is  who  have 
seen  it." 

"I'm  sure  I've  read  enough  about  it,  and  I've  heard 
it  discussed  often  enough.  No  one  has  talked  of  any- 
thing else  for  ever  so  long.  I  suppose  that's  why  I 
want  to  forget  it." 

"Then  why  ask  me  to  speak  of  it?" 

"I  don't  want  you  to  speak  of  it,  unless  you  want 
to  do  so.  I  thought  you  would  like  to  tell  me  about 
it,  and  that's  why  I  asked  you.  But,  to  be  quite 


MARY  CHALLONER  137 

truthful,  I  should  much  prefer  that  you  should  for- 
get it,  too.  I  should  think  you  would  be  more  eager 
than  I  to  forget  it." 

"Yet  you  want  me  to  speak  of  it  publicly  at  the 
Smithsons'." 

"O,  that's  quite  another  thing.  Every  one  who 
comes  back  makes  a  speech  about  what  he's  gone 
through.  It's  expected  of  him.  It  gives  him  social 
prestige,  you  know." 

"Good  God,  Mary,  you  can't  really  want  me  to  cap- 
italise my  experiences  to  gain  social  prestige." 

"Why  not  ?  It  must  be  very  pleasant  to  be  popular, 
and  just  now  the  man  in  khaki  is  a  very  popular  perj 
son.  I  hope  you're  not  going  to  be  silly  about  it  1  we 
are  all  proud  of  you,  and  the  Smithsons  are  really  ex- 
pecting great  things  from  you." 

The  words  were  spoken  with  so  sincere  an  air  of 
girlish  vanity  and  innocence,  that  he  could  not  be 
angry  with  her.  It  was  something  that  she  was  proud 
of  him,  even  if  it  was  only  social  pride  she  felt  It 
was  a  poor  crumb  from  a  table  which  he  had  expected 
to  be  laden  with  the  fruits  of  love,  but  it  was  better 
than  nothing. 

"You  will  speak  at  the  Smithsons',  won't  you?"  she 
said,  laying  her  hand  on  his  arm.  "Just  to  please  me." 

"Very  well,"  he  answered,  with  a  rather  grim  smile. 
"But,  if  I  do,  I  shall  tell  them  the  blunt  truth  of  what 
war  is  like." 

"O,  they  won't  mind  that.  They  really  like  hor- 
rors," was  the  reply. 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  kind  of  wistful  surprise. 


138  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

Was  she  saying  things  that  were  the  genuine  expres- 
sion of  her  own  mind,  or  only  echoing  the  opinions  of 
others?  He  became  keenly  conscious  of  a  kind  of 
corrupted  sweetness  in  her.  He  had  imagined  her 
grave  and  earnest  in  temper:  he  found  her  trivial. 
Was  it  the  result  of  living  among  trivial  people?  In 
this  quiet  nook  of  the  world  had  she  fed  on  the  lilies 
and  lain  on  the  roses  of  life  so  long,  that  she  had  be- 
come enervated?  He  had  never  thought  of  himself 
as  a  hero,  but  he  had  always  thought  of  Mary  as 
heroic.  He  had  included  her  in  the  new  conception 
of  heroic  womanhood  which  the  war  had  created.  It 
struck  him  hard  to  find  her  so  different  from  his  ideal 
of  her.  With  a  lover's  casuistry  he  blamed  not  her, 
but  her  environment.  ^  She  had  been  caught  in  the 
social  mesh  of  a  set  of  selfish  small-minded  rich  folk; 
they  had  corrupted  her.  He  had  forgotten  that  such 
persons  existed.  He  had  never  thought  of  the  effect 
they  might  have  on  a  sensitive  girl,  shut  off  from  the 
world,  and  dependent  on  them  for  her  opinions,  her 
ideals,  her  modes  of  thought.  She  turned  eagerly  to 
the  view  of  the  valley,  visible  from  the  boundary  wall 
of  the  rose  garden.  In  the  distance  a  tiny  cloud  of 
dust  rose,  and  the  honk  of  an  automobile  was  heard. 

"Why  that  must  be  Mr.  Smithson  coming  over  to 
see  you,"  she  cried.  "He  will  be  so  delighted  that 
you've  promised  to  speak  in  his  house.  It  will  be 
quite  an  event." 


MARY  CHALLONER  139 

VI 

That  Smithson  was  not  Challoner's  "kind  of  folk" 
was  evident  at  a  glance.  He  was  a  short  alert  man, 
too  stout  for  his  height,  with  the  bustling  air  of  a 
bagman.  His  face  was  not  bad;  the  dark  eyes  were 
intelligent,  the  large-lipped  mouth  humorous,  and 
the  features  were  blunt  and  heavy.  One  could  find 
a  thousand  such  faces  in  a  casual  walk  through  the 
main  streets  of  any  American  manufacturing  city. 

He  had  a  jovial  manner;  smiled  constantly,  laughed 
often,  and  produced  the  impression  of  a  man  very 
much  in  love  with  his  own  luck.  He  had  good  reason 
for  his  self-satisfaction.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
war  he  was  an  automobile  manufacturer  on  the  small- 
est possible  scale.  He  was  quick  to  see  his  chance, 
and  by  dint  of  push  and  energy  had  obtained  large 
government  contracts  for  motor-trucks.  From  that 
hour  his  financial  rise  had  been  rapid.  He  had  been 
acute  enough  to  recognise  the  coming  famine  in  ship- 
ping, and  had  invested  all  the  money  he  had  made  or 
could  borrow  in  buying  up  any  kind  of  steamer  that 
was  not  wholly  past  repair.  A  single  voyage  more 
than  paid  the  original  cost  of  these  discards  of  the 
sea.  The  second  year  of  the  war  found  him  wealthy, 
and  it  was  then  that  he  bought  the  Milford  house,  and 
proceeded  to  transform  it,  according  to  his  own  naive 
ideas  of  grandeur.  He  was  essentially  a  good-natured 
man,  and  had  a  sincere  desire  to  share  his  good  luck 
with  others.  He  gave  freely  and  generously  to  every 
patriotic  enterprise.  To  make  Milford  Towers — he 


140  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

himself  had  added  the  Towers  to  the  original  title — 
an  open  house  for  the  community  was  a  real  gratifica- 
tion both  to  his  social  pride  and  his  generous  instincts. 

His  wife  was  a  large-framed  motherly  woman  of 
small  mentality  but  amiable  temper.  She  was  aware 
of  her  social  defects,  and  studiously  sought  to  remedy 
them;  but  upon  the  whole  they  did  not  trouble  her 
much,  nor  were  they  remembered  against  her,  because 
they  were  nullified  by  her  genuine  kindness  of  nature. 
She  dressed  with  elaborate  richness,  and  was  totally  un- 
acquainted with  the  art  of  expensive  simplicity,  which 
is  the  final  triumph  of  good  taste.  Her  solecisms  of 
speech  often  created  laughter,  but  it  was  not  spiteful 
or  derisive  laughter.  Ill-natured  persons  soon  dis- 
covered that  irony  was  wasted  on  her,  and  was  not 
welcomed  by  those  who  appreciated  her  kind-hearted- 
ness. The  fastidious  might  have  called  her  vulgar, 
but  even  these  were  aware  that  what  they  meant  by 
the  term  was  an  absence  of  social  finish,  not  an  inher- 
ent defect  of  character.  After  all,  kindness  of  heart 
is  a  better  passport  to  social  consideration  than  social 
grace  and  has  more  enduring  qualities. 

The  automobile  swung  round  the  curve  of  the  drive- 
way. Smithson  descended  briskly,  and  came  down 
the  paved  path  to  the  rose-garden  with  extended  hand. 

"So  glad  to  see  you,  Mary.  I've  been  rather  afraid 
you  might  be  blaming  me  for  keeping  you  to  dinner 
last  night." 

"Not  at  all,"  she  replied. 

"And  this  is  Captain  Chalmers?  Won't  you  please 
introduce  me?" 


MARY  CHALLONER  141 

He  shook  Chalmers'  hand  with  genial  heartiness,  re- 
marking that  he  was  proud  to  make  his  acquaintance. 

"We've  all  heard  of  you,"  he  said,  "and  admired 
you.  And  we  want  to  hear  you  speak.  I  daresay 
Mary  has  told  you." 

"I'm  no  speaker,  Mr.  Smithson.  I've  never  spoken 
in  public  in  my  life." 

"Ah,  but  this  is  different,  isn't  it?  You've  some- 
thing to  say  now,  and  I've  found  that  when  a  man 
has  a  real  story  to  tell,  he  can't  fail  to  speak  excel- 
lently. I  know  by  myself.  I  couldn't  make  a  speech 
on  any  public  question  to  save  my  life,  but  if  I  have 
to  speak  on  something  I  know  better  than  any  one 
else,  I'm  as  bold  as  a  lion." 

"Well,  I  do  know  something  about  the  war,  I  ad- 
mit," said  Chalmers  with  a  smile. 

"No  one  more  so,"  said  Smithson  enthusiastically. 
"Why  you  went  over  before  America  declared  war, 
didn't  you?  That's  a  real  distinction,  isn't  it?  I  am 
one  of  those  who  always  thought  America  ought  to 
have  declared  war  immediately  on  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania.  We  missed  our  big  chance  as  a  nation  by 
our  delay.  Our  only  consolation  is  that  some  of  you 
took  it,  and  didn't  wait." 

This  opinion  of  Smithson's  so  thoroughly  coincided 
with  his  own  that  Chalmers  felt  his  heart  warm  to- 
ward him.  He  was  therefore  unpleasantly  surprised 
when  Smithson  added,  "But  America  won  the  war 
after  all,  so  perhaps  it  didn't  matter." 

"America  won  the  war?  O  no,  Mr.  Smithson, 
you're  quite  mistaken  there,  I  assure  you." 


142  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"But  she  did,  didn't  she  ?  All  the  papers  say  so.  I 
thought  that  was  generally  understood." 

"It's  only  true  in  a  very  limited  sense.  To  any 
man  who  takes  a  large  view  it  isn't  true  at  all." 

"Of  course  I'm  willing  to  be  instructed,"  said 
Smithson,  "but  I'm  surprised  at  what  you  say.  I 
hope  you  won't  say  anything  like  that  when  you  speak 
in  my  house.  I'm  afraid  you'll  offend  your  audience." 

"I  shall  speak  the  truth,  and  if  the  truth  differs  from 
what  your  audience  believes,  I  can't  help  that." 

"Well,  what  is  the  truth?  As  I  said,  I'm  quite 
willing  to  be  instructed." 

Thereupon  Chalmers  spoke. 

"I  am  an  American,"  he  said,  "so  don't  think  I  am 
capable  of  disparaging  America.  No  armies  have 
fought  with  finer  devotion  than  our  American  boys. 
They  are  the  equals  of  the  best.  But  they  didn't  win 
the  war.  They  came  too  late  for  that.  They  helped 
turn  the  scale  beyond  doubt  That  was  a  great  thing 
to  do.  But  if  you  will  look  at  the  casualty  lists  of  the 
last  three  months  of  fighting,  you  can  easily  discover 
who  bore  the  brunt  of  the  struggle.  For  week  after 
week  the  British  casualties  ran  at  thirty  to  forty 
thousand.  I'm  not  saying  that  the  American  troops 
wouldn't  have  fought  quite  as  well,  but  they  weren't 
there  in  sufficient  numbers.  They  held  one  end  of  a 
long  line,  and  held  it  splendidly.  They  did  great 
things  in  the  Argonne.  But  do  you  know  that  up  to 
the  very  end  of  the  war  hardly  an  American  aero- 
plane was  in  the  air?  They  weren't  ready.  The 
American  aviators  flew  in  French  and  British  ma- 


MARY  CMALLONER  143 

chines.  Sometimes  they  had  refitted  them  with 
American  engines,  but  that  was  all.  The  fact  is — • 
and  it's  a  splendid  fact — that  America  had  laid  her 
plans  for  a  long  war.  She  had  built  railways  right 
across  France  to  supply  her  troops  with  food  and 
munitions.  She  had  organised  with  tremendous  effi- 
ciency for  at  least  four  years  of  war.  Obviously  it 
follows  that  when  the  war  ended  suddenly,  she  had 
not  put  forth  her  strength.  It  was  there,  but  it  wasn't 
mobilised.  Therefore  it's  nonsense  to  say  that  Amer- 
ica won  the  war.  She  helped  immensely  by  her 
wealth  and  her  unsuspected  military  efficiency,  and  the 
effect  these  things  had  in  destroying  the  morale  of 
Germany.  She  helped  to  the  utmost  of  her  oppor- 
tunity in  actual  fighting.  Isn't  it  enough  to  say  that, 
without  parading  all  the  streets  with  placards  'The 
Yanks  did  it'?" 

"Why,  John  Chalmers,  you  amaze  me,"  interrupted 
Mary.  "One  might  think  you  weren't  an  American." 

"I  should  be  a  very  poor  American,  Mary,  if  I 
didn't  do  justice  to  my  comrades  in  arms.  I  don't 
suppose  you  know  it,  for  the  world  generally  doesn't 
know  it  yet,  but  the  Canadians  were  the  hammer-head 
of  all  the  great  final  attacks.  They  were  always  put 
into  the  place  of  the  greatest  danger.  They  used  to 
be  called  Toch's  Pets.'  But  I've  never  heard  them 
boast  that  Canada  won  the  war.  For  four  years  and 
a  half  they  fought  from  Ypres  to  Drocourt,  but  I 
never  heard  them  boast  about  it.  It's  this  spirit  of 
boasting  I  dislike.  It's  petty.  It's  parochial.  It 
isn't  worthy  of  America.  It's  just  because  I  am  an 


CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

American  that  I  hate  to  hear  any  American  talk  boast- 
ingly  of  his  own  doings,  in  tacit  disparagement  of 
those  who  fought  much  longer  than  he,  and  against 
far  more  terrible  odds." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Smithson  doubtfully,  "I  suppose 
you're  right.  But  do  you  think  it  wise  to  say  these 
things  in  public  just  now?" 

"Why  not?  They  will  have  to  be  said  when  his- 
tory is  written.  You  can't  hide  facts." 

"But  just  now — well,  Captain,  there's  a  good  deal 
of  anti-British  feeling." 

"There  always  has  been — in  America,  but  not  on 
the  battlefield,  Mr.  Smithson.  I  believe  it  is  really  the 
work  of  German  propaganda." 

"So  now  you're  going  to  call  us  pro-Germans,"  said 
Mary  with  a  scornful  smile. 

"I  said  nothing  so  ridiculous,  Mary.  Of  course 
you're  not.  But  I'll  tell  you  one  thing  I've  noticed — 
America  has  spent  all  her  praise  on  the  French,  and 
has  had  precious  little  to  say  about  the  British.  I 
suppose  it's  the  old  stupid  rancour  at  work,  created 
by  false  history  and  political  enmity.  But  I  think  it's 
also  more  than  that,  it's  the  carefully  disguised  effort 
of  the  Hun  to  drive  a  wedge  between  Britain  and 
America,  because  he  knows  that  any  real  union  be- 
tween them  means  the  end  of  his  own  military  and 
commercial  ambitions." 

"But  Germany's  done  for,"  said  Smithson. 

"Don't  you  believe  it.  I  hate  the  Germans,  and 
loathe  them  more  than  I  hate  them,  but  I'm  not  fool 
enough  to  deny  their  cleverness.  They've  lost  the 


MARY  CHALLONER  145 

war,  but  they're  astute  enough  to  see  that  they  may 
win  the  peace,  if  only  they  can  sow  discord  between 
Britain  and  America,  because  they  know  that  these  are 
their  real  enemies.  They're  not  at  all  concerned  when 
Americans  cheer  frantically  for  France,  and  talk  of 
their  debt  to  France;  but  every  time  an  American 
audience  cheers  Britain  they're  alarmed,  and  therefore 
they  are  willing  to  stoop  to  any  lie  to  keep  Britain 
and  America  apart." 

"By  God,  I  believe  that's  true,"  said  Smithson, 
"though  I  confess  I  never  saw  it  in  that  light  before." 

"The  more  you  think  it  over,  the  truer  I  think 
you'll  find  it.  From  the  first,  with  some  honourable 
exceptions,  the  attitude  of  the  papers  toward  Britain 
has  been  lukewarm  if  not  hostile.  At  one  time  the 
lie  went  round  that  the  British  armies  left  the  French 
to  do  the  hardest  part  of  the  fighting.  When  that  lie 
was  killed  by  the  immense  casualty  lists  of  the  British, 
the  ground  was  taken  that  America  fought  to  save 
France,  but  not  to  help  Britain.  To  the  very  end  of 
the  war  Britain  was  spoken  of  as  an  'associate,'  never 
as  an  ally.  And  then  comes  all  the  mischievous  non- 
sense about  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  which  was  inter- 
preted by  the  mass  of  people  as  an  American  effort  to 
limit  the  British  navy.  Mr.  Smithson,  I  used  to  read 
the  American  papers  when  I  was  in  the  trenches.  All 
round  me  men  were  dying  under  the  Union  Jack. 
They  were  daily  doing  acts  of  supreme  devotion  and 
heroism.  And  then  I  read  the  sneers  of  American 
papers  about  Britain  not  doing  her  part,  sneers  from 
men  who  forgot  that  their  own  country  waited  two 


146  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

years  and  a  half  before  she  did  anything  at  all,  and  I 
was  ashamed.  And  that's  why  I  resolved  that  if  I 
did  ever  happen  to  survive  and  come  home,  I'd  at  least 
make  it  my  business  to  let  my  own  people  know  what 
the  British  had  done  in  the  war.  I  don't  ask  for 
magnanimity,  I  don't  appeal  to  it.  I  ask  for  nothing 
more  than  an  honest  recognition  of  facts.  The  fact 
that  there  are  700,000  British  dead  in  France  and 
Flanders.  The  fact  that  for  two  years  and  a  half  the 
British  Navy  was  defending  America  as  well  as  Eng- 
land. The  fact  that  the  British  and  American  sol- 
diers thoroughly  understand  each  other,  and  respect 
each  other's  virtues,  and  cannot  understand  the  petty 
spirit  of  armchair  politicians  who  lose  no  chance  to 
create  division  and  envy  between  the  only  two  nations 
who  have  the  power,  by  their  union,  to  create  a  just 
and  happy  world." 

"Listen  to  him,"  said  Mary,  with  an  enigmatic 
smile.  "He  said  he  couldn't  speak,  and  he's  address- 
ing us  as  if  we  were  a  public  meeting." 

"I'm  afraid  I  am,  and  I  apologise." 

"No  need  to  apologise,"  said  Smithson.  "You've 
very  much  interested  me.  And  I  believe  you're  right 
too.  It's  for  me  to  apologise  for  telling  you  what  I 
thought  you  ought  to  say  in  public.  You  just  say 
anything  you  like,  Captain.  I  guess  we  can  bear  it." 

They  turned  toward  the  house,  and  the  talk  drifted 
into  personal  channels.  It  was  arranged  that  Chal- 
mers should  speak  in  the  ball-room  of  Milford  Towers 
in  two  days'  time. 

"My  secretary  can  let  all  the  people  know  over  the 


MARY  CHALLONER  147 

'phone,"  said  Smithson.  "We'll  have  a  little  dinner 
party  before  the  speech.  And  I'd  be  glad  if  you'll 
come  early,  Captain,  I  should  like  you  to  see  my 
house." 

"And  we  might  have  a  dance  afterwards,  don't  you 
think?"  said  Mary.  "That  would  make  it  a  delightful 
evening." 

"Why,  certainly,  if  you  want  it,  Mary." 
Chalmers  looked  at  her  in  surprise,  but  he  said 
nothing.  Did  she  see  nothing  incongruous  in  wedg- 
ing in  his  speech  between  a  dinner  and  a  dance  ?  And 
again  there  came  to  him  that  impression  of  a  cor- 
rupted sweetness  in  her.  It  seemed  to  him  that  her 
very  voice  had  altered  since  those  old  days  of  simple 
girlhood.  It  had  been  a  voice  of  low  sweet  har- 
monies, suggesting  the  perfume  of  flowers  and  the 
quietness  of  gardens.  It  was  a  pure  and  earnest  voice, 
rarely  heard,  like  the  nightingale's.  It  was  like  secret 
music  rising  out  of  deep  stillness;  it  had  vibrations  in 
it  which  stirred  the  heart  with  the  knowledge  of 
beauty,  the  conviction  of  a  hidden  loveliness  in  earthly 
things.  It  seemed  now  to  have  lost  these  qualities. 
The  depth  and  beauty  were  lost,  the  moving  quality  of 
tone :  it  was  shallow  and  insincere ;  it  had  taken  on  the 
thin  artificial  accents  of  society,  and  had  become  com- 
mon. She  was  a  priestess  who  had  left  her  temple, 
a  vestal  who  had  forsaken  her  temple  and  its  sacred 
fires.  She  no  longer  moved  aloof  and  separate;  she 
had  lost  the  distinction  of  her  isolation.  In  that 
changed  voice  was  the  witness  of  her  deterioration,  the 


148  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

proof  of  the  subtle  ruin  which  the  world  and  its  vani- 
ties had  wrought  within  her. 


VII 

Those  of  us  who  heard  the  speech  of  Chalmers  in 
the  Smithsons'  ball-room  will  always  retain  a  curious 
impression  of  something  elemental  suddenly  loosed, 
with  shattering  effect,  upon  the  placidities  of  the  con- 
ventional. It  was  like  a  volcanic  wave  thrown  up 
from  the  abysses  of  the  Pacific,  mud-coloured,  im- 
mense, rolling  like  an  advancing  wall  across  the  blue 
plains  of  water,  submerging  everything  in  its  path, 
and  then  quietly  sinking  again  in  a  stained  and  agi- 
tated sea.  This  image,  no  doubt,  appears  too  gran- 
diose for  the  occasion;  but  nevertheless  it  does  con- 
vey a  truthful  impression. 

The  singular  thing  about  the  effect  which  Chalmers 
produced  was  that  it  owed  nothing  to  what  usually 
passes  for  oratory.  There  was  no  use  of  calculated 
antithesis,  of  startling  metaphor,  of  dramatic  gesture; 
nothing  in  the  way  of  purple  patches.  He  spoke  very 
simply  in  conversational  tones.  After  the  first  brief 
moments  of  nervousness  he  appeared  to  forget  all 
about  his  audience.  He  spoke  out  of  himself,  and, 
in  a  sense,  to  himself.  This  is  what  I  mean  by  a  cer- 
tain elemental  force  in  him ;  his  soul  talked.  Thoughts 
and  emotions  long  rehearsed  in  secret,  long  meditated 
in  the  privacy  of  his  own  heart,  took  shape,  and  poured 
themselves  out  like  molten  metal  from  a  cauldron. 
Simple  as  his  words  were,  they  were  intense.  He 


MARY  CHALLONER  149 

stood,  a  tall  slim  figure,  burdened  with  a  message  like 
a  prophet,  and  quietly  aware  of  its  value,  before  that 
crowd  of  well-dressed  people.  I  don't  know  what  they 
expected — probably  a  dramatic  story  in  which  humour 
and  pathos  were  nicely  balanced;  selected  episodes 
from  a  grim  drama,  in  which  the  grimness  was  modi- 
fied and  attenuated  to  the  polite  traditions  of  a  draw- 
ing-room. What  they  heard  was  a  plain  man's  de- 
scription of  what  war  meant.  "Do  any  of  you  really 
understand  what  war  is?"  was  his  opening  question. 
He  repeated  it  again  and  again  as  he  went  on,  as  a 
motif  is  repeated  in  grand  opera.  He  was  there  to 
make  them  understand. 

A  man  of  more  ordinary  mould,  setting  out  to 
achieve  the  same  end,  would  no  doubt  have  found  his 
chief  means  in  the  vivid  portrayal  of  physical  horror. 
Chalmers  certainly  did  not  ignore  physical  horror. 
When  he  spoke  of  the  unburied  dead  on  the  Somme 
perpetually  churned  up  in  the  mud  under  the  wheels 
of  advancing  artillery;  when  he  pictured  the  walls  of 
the  trenches  built  up  of  corrupting  bodies,  German, 
French,  and  British,  each  still  recognisable  by  his  rot- 
ting uniform;  when  he  described  an  exploding  shell 
leaving  only  fragments  of  flesh  of  those  who  but  an 
instant  before  had  been  men  full  of  laughter  and  the 
love  of  life,  he  could  not  but  be  conscious  of  the 
shudder  that  ran  through  his  audience.  But  the  hor- 
ror created  was  of  a  more  subtle  quality  than  the  phys- 
ical. It  was  the  horror  of  spiritual  nakedness.  It 
was  the  horror  of  seeing  souls  stripped  of  their  bodies, 
a  monstrous  divine  indecency.  It  was  like  looking  on 


150  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

God,  a  profanation  and  a  sacrilege.  It  was  the  inner- 
most secrets  of  being  suddenly  exposed.  And  its 
effect  was  to  make  one  ashamed  of  the  body,  the  gross- 
ness  of  its  appetites,  the  luxuries  with  which  civilisa- 
tion had  surrounded  it.  It  was  so  negligible  a  part 
of  the  human  creature,  so  easily  broken,  so  quickly 
cast  away  and  made  valueless.  It  was  at  best  nothing 
more  than  the  blood-stained  uniform  of  the  spirit. 
The  uniform  was  torn  away,  and  that  which  lay  be- 
neath it  was  pitilessly  exhibited,  in  its  grandeur  or 
its  deformity.  In  such  scenes  spiritual  values  alone 
counted,  for  they  were  the  only  real  values. 

His  audience,  that  complacent  contented  audience 
of  Melrose,  flushed  and  paled  and  looked  at  one  an- 
other with  startled  eyes.  During  all  the  years  of  war 
they  had  slept  in  soft  beds,  dressed,  bathed,  perfumed 
and  manicured  their  bodies.  They  had  come  there 
that  night  from  tables  sparkling  with  cut  glass  and 
laden  with  exquisite  food.  The  women  had  done  a 
certain  amount  of  Red  Cross  work,  in  fine  rooms, 
amid  the  pleasant  gossip  of  their  friends,  but  those 
delicate  hands  had  not  been  hurt  by  labour  nor  had 
they  touched  the  loathsomeness  of  putrid  wounds. 
They  had  never  learned  to  distinguish  between  them- 
selves and  their  bodies.  At  Church  on  Sunday,  in 
decorous  acts  of  worship,  they  had  sung  hymns  and 
tittered  words  which  implied  that  distinction,  but  it 
was  as  unreal  to  them  as  the  imaginary  demarcations 
which  run  between  states  and  counties.  Suddenly 
they  saw  the  body,  over  which  they  had  expended  the 
chief  energy  of  their  lives,  exhibited  for  what  it  really 


MARY  CHALLONER  151 

was,  a  tissue  of  corrupting  flesh  and  sinew  that  might 
be  torn  from  them  in  an  instant.  It  was  a  thing  per- 
ishable, negligible,  of  no  account,  that  might  be  dis- 
persed in  fragments  to  the  winds  or  used  to  build 
trenches  in  the  dreadful  promiscuity  of  corruption. 
And  there  was  an  immense  insult  and  affront  in  the 
thought,  a  subtle  horror,  an  indecency  of  exposure 
and  improper  revelation. 

Grandeur  was  there,  too;  a  remote  grandeur  of 
heroism  of  which  they  had  read  in  old  histories,  but 
of  which  they  had  no  living  knowledge.  It  was  found 
to-day  in  all  kinds  of  men,  the  scholar  and  the  thug, 
the  saint  and  the  criminal,  the  West  Point  officer  and 
the  Bowery  bum.  Men  with  whom  they  would  never 
think  of  associating,  men  coarse  and  common  and 
sometimes  base,  had  displayed  it.  You  could  draw 
no  line  between  them.  They  were  a  democracy  of 
death.  They  rose  equally  to  great  occasions  as  they 
mingled  their  blood  equally  on  shell-torn  trench  and 
barbed  wire  entanglements.  Their  whole  secret  lay 
in  one  quality,  self-surrender.  They  had  ceased  to 
live  for  themselves  and  had  become  possessed  by  some- 
thing larger  than  themselves.  To  think  of  them  was 
to  see  all  other  forms  of  life  as  paltry.  The  dead 
Bowery  bum,  who,  in  his  dying,  had  risen  to  the 
supreme  self-sacrifice,  had  attained  a  moral  height 
which  not  all  the  wealth  and  culture  of  the  world  could 
give  him.  He  was  as  superior  to  the  complacent 
plutocrats  of  Melrose  as  Christ  upon  his  cross  was  to 
the  priests  and  Sadducees  who  sat  down  to  dine  at  ease 
while  the  world  was  darkened. 


152  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

They  were  busy  doing  things  for  the  soldier;  had 
they  ever  thought  of  what  he  had  done  for  them? 
They  talked  of  caring  for  his  morals,  as  if  he  were  a 
wicked  child  who  wanted  a  nurse  or  an  officer  of  the 
Juvenile  Court  to  look  after  him :  did  they  comprehend 
that  he  had  created  a  new  standard  of  morality,  in- 
finitely superior  to  their  own?  They  talked  of  what 
they  must  do  for  him  on  his  return ;  had  they  under- 
stood that  when  he  came  back  it  would  be  as  their 
moral  master,  with  a  new  decalogue  which  he  would 
impose  on  them?  For  he  had  learned  what  they  had 
never  learned,  that  until  men  are  willing  to  fling  life 
away  they  don't  know  what  living  is.  Men  stagnate 
and  rot  until  something  bigger  than  themselves  gets 
hold  of  them,  and  flings  them  forth  into  new  orbits 
where  self  is  forgotten.  This  was  what  war  was,  the 
great  emancipation  from  self.  It  gave  to  multitudes 
of  obscure  men  the  only  chance  of  real  living  which 
they  had  ever  known.  It  brought  to  them  and  to  all 
men  the  one  imperishable  ethic  of  all  nobility,  that  he 
that  saves  his  life  loseth  it,  and  he  who  is  willing  to 
lose  his  life  for  a  just  cause  saves  it  unto  life  eternal. 

So  far  I  summarise  the  speech  of  Chalmers  that 
night  before  that  select  audience  in  Smithson's  ball- 
room. Some  of  the  things  he  intended  to  say  he 
never  so  much  as  alluded  to :  that  definition  of  Amer- 
ica's part  in  the  war,  for  example,  which  Smithson 
expected  from  him.  It  probably  seemed  unessential 
to  him;  certainly  he  did  not  omit  it  from  any  fear  of 
giving  offense.  I  think  it  was  the  nature  of  his  audi- 
ence that  determined  the  current  of  his  thought.  He 


MARY  CHALLONER  153 

wanted  to  get  under  the  skin  of  their  complacency. 
There  were  a  good  many  things  of  a  personal  nature 
that  rankled  in  his  mind,  particularly  that  painful  im- 
pression of  corrupted  sweetness  in  Mary.  The  change 
in  her  he  charged  to  Melrose  society.  These  were 
the  men  and  women  who  had  corrupted  her.  Prob- 
ably he  was  unjust  to  them,  for  they  were  really  kindly 
and  pleasant  folk,  and  after  all  no  character  is  cor- 
rupted that  has  not  the  potency  of  corruption  in  itself. 
But  they  looked  so  contented  with  themselves,  one 
might  think  they  supposed  they  had  won  the  war  by 
knitting  socks  and  buying  Liberty  bonds.  They 
looked  smug — there  was  no  other  word  that  described 
them.  And  so  he  became  angry  the  moment  he  saw 
them,  and  was  filled  with  a  kind  of  prophetic  indigna- 
tion. 

Certainly  he  offended  them,  and  far  more  deeply 
than  he  could  have  done  by  any  criticism  of  America's 
part  in  the  war,  such  as  he  had  intended.  He  offended 
them  by  exposing  their  souls  to  them.  They  expected 
to  be  praised  and  he  accused  them.  They  proposed 
to  lionise  him,  for  which  purpose  the  lion  must  be 
tame.  He  was  a  lion  who  flung  the  fillets  of  flowers 
from  his  mane,  and  turned  on  them  to  rend  them.  To 
the  spectator  the  effect  was  almost  comic ;  they  looked 
so  huddled,  confused,  frightened.  One  almost  ex- 
pected to  see  them  jump  on  chairs,  or  hide  in  cup- 
boards, or  run  away,  eager  to  find  any  kind  of  shelter. 
They  were  too  alarmed  even  to  demonstrate  against 
their  lion.  They  sat  in  miserable  silence,  some 
flushed,  some  pale,  all  unhappy.  When  he  concluded, 


154  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

no  one  clapped  but  Mr.  Smithson,  who  did  so  out  of 
a  sense  of  social  obligation;  the  rest  left  the  room  in 
indignant  and  almost  undignified  flight. 

There  were,  however,  some  exceptions.  At  the 
close  of  his  address  a  lady  dressed  in  deep  black,  ac- 
companied by  a  young  aviator,  came  forward  to  thank 
him.  She  spoke  in  a  shaken  voice,  and  with  tears  in 
her  eyes. 

"I  am  Mrs.  Sanford.  I  know  what  war  is,"  she 
said.  "My  son " 

He  looked  enquiringly  at  the  youth  beside  her. 

"No,"  she  said  quietly,  "this  is  not  my  son.  My 
son  is  dead.  This  is  his  friend,  who  is  visiting  me. 
He  came  to  bring  me  the  few  belongings  that  my  son 
had  with  him  when  he  died." 

Her  pale  fine  face  was  suddenly  illumined. 

"I  am  proud  that  he  died  for  his  country,"  she  said. 
"I  don't  grudge  him.  I  did  grudge  him  at  first,  it 
seemed  that  I  couldn't  bear  to  think  of  him  as  dead. 
But  as  you  spoke  to-night,  there  came  to  me  the  under- 
standing of  what  you  called  spiritual  values.  I  was 
able  to  think  of  him  as  a  soul  for  whom  death  was  not 
the  end.  I  didn't  see  in  my  mind  any  longer  the  poor 
broken  body — night  and  day  I've  been  seeing  that. 
I  saw  his  soul  marching  on,  and  the  thought  has  given 
me  great  peace.  I  shall  grieve  for  him  still — I  can't 
help  that — but  not  in  the  same  way.  O,  no — not  in 
the  same  way,  not  rebelling  against  my  fate  and  his — 
for  I  realise  now  that  he  died  at  his  noblest  moment — 
if  he  had  lived  many  years  he  could  have  touched  no 


MARY  CHALLONER  155 

nobler  moment — he  died  before  he  had  time  to  sink 
lower  than  that  noblest  moment." 

"Ah,"  said  Chalmers,  "that's  why  so  many  of  us 
are  almost  sorry  that  we  have  survived.  We're  afraid 
we've  touched  our  noblest  moment." 

The  young  aviator  flushed  at  the  words. 

"I  know  what  that  means,"  he  said  in  an  embar- 
rassed voice.  "It's  as  though  you're  almost  ashamed 
of  being  alive,  isn't  it?" 

"But  we  mustn't  think  that  way,  either,  must  we?" 
said  Mrs.  Sanford.  "That's  a  kind  of  cowardice, 
isn't  it?  You  dear  boys  haven't  been  afraid  of  dying, 
and  you  mustn't  be  afraid  of  living.  Perhaps  after 
all  it's  easier  to  die  at  the  height  of  a  great  emotion 
than  to  live  nobly  through  the  years  which  have  no 
great  emotions.  We  can  make  the  memory  of  our 
highest  moments  the  impulse  of  our  moments  that  are 
less  high,  can't  we?" 

"That's  what  I  want  to  do,"  said  Chalmers.  "But 
one  has  a  terrible  sense  sometimes  of  having  stepped 
down  to  a  lower  plane  of  being." 

"I  know  how  you  feel,"  she  said.  "But  you  mustn't 
think  too  hardly  of  us  here  in  Melrose.  There  are 
some  here  who  have  suffered  as  I  have.  Of  course 
those  who  haven't  suffered  can't  understand.  It's  not 
altogether  their  fault.  But  I  mustn't  keep  you. 
Hadn't  we  better  join  the  others?" 

They  went  into  the  large  mahogany-panelled  dining 
room  where  refreshments  were  being  served.  As  they 
passed  a  group  near  the  door  Chalmers  heard  an  iron- 
ical voice  saying,  "Why  didn't  someone  tell  me  I  was 


156  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

coming  to  hear  a  sermon?  Why,  he  talked  like  the 
Judgment  Day.  I  assure  you  I  never  felt  so  un- 
comfortable in  my  life."  To  which  a  girl's  voice  re- 
plied, "I  wonder  what  Mary  Challoner  thought  of  it? 
She  must  have  been  surprised." 

"Did  I  really  preach  a  sermon?"  he  said  to  Mrs. 
Sanford.  "I  didn't  mean  to." 

"I'm  afraid  you  did,"  she  answered  with  a  smile. 
"But  you  needn't  be  ashamed  of  it.  It  was  the  kind 
of  sermon  we  needed  to  hear." 

He  looked  round  the  crowded  room.  There  was  a 
tremendous  noise  of  clamant  conversation,  above 
which  rose  the  strains  of  a  noisy  pianist  and  a  string 
band.  The  band  was  playing  in  an  alcove  between  the 
dining-room  and  the  ball-room.  Some  of  the  young 
girls  and  young  men  were  already  moving  into  the 
ball-room  eager  for  the  dance.  The  waiters  were 
rapidly  removing  the  chairs  and  clearing  the  floor. 
In  the  dining-room  the  older  people  stood  in  groups, 
talking  eagerly.  They  looked  a  little  askance  at  him, 
but  it  was  not  in  their  natures  to  be  discourteous. 
They  greeted  him  with  polite  curiosity.  After  all  was 
he  not  Hugh  Challoner's  nephew,  and  one  of  them- 
selves? Of  course  he  had  behaved  in  a  very  eccentric 
fashion,  which  justified  their  resentment,  but  had  he 
not  really  distinguished  himself  in  the  war? 

"He  was  ill  a  long  time,  quite  lost  his  mind,"  said 
one  large  lady,  magnificently  bejewelled,  to  her  friend, 
a  slim  elderly  woman,  with  an  ironic  mouth. 

"Ah,  that  accounts  for  it,"  was  the  retort.  "I 
thought  he  seemed  a  little  mad,  didn't  you?" 


MARY  CHALLONER  157 

"But  he  really  was  very  rude,  and  I  think  his  uncle 
should  talk  to  him  about  it.  Why,  he  talked  to  us  as 
if  we  were  heathens." 

"Well,  at  all  events,  we've  had  a  new  sensation. 
We  should  be  grateful  for  that." 

"But  a  most  unpleasant  sensation,  my  dear.  Ah — 
here  he  is." 

The  large  lady  bowed  quite  graciously  as  he  passed. 
She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  forgive  him. 

And  now  that  the  shock  of  his  speech  was  passed, 
there  was  a  growing  disposition  to  forgive  him.  As 
the  lady  with  the  ironic  mouth  had  said,  they  had  had 
a  new  sensation.  A  great  deal  might  be  forgiven  a 
man  who  could  produce  a  new  sensation. 

The  movement  to  the  ball-room  had  become  general. 
Already  the  band  was  playing  a  gay  tango,  and  several 
couples  were  on  the  floor. 

Hugh  Challoner  came  through  the  crowd,  his  lips 
smiling,  but  his  brow  wrinkled  with  doubt. 

"You  spoke  excellently,  my  dear  boy,"  he  said, 
"but " 

He  did  not  finish  the  sentence. 

"Won't  you  stay  for  the  dance?"  he  finished 
abruptly. 

"Is  Mary  staying  ?" 

"She's  already  dancing." 

"I  think  not,"  said  Chalmers  quietly. 

Challoner  looked  irritated  and  annoyed. 

"I  will  wait  for  you  both  in  the  conservatory,"  said 
Chalmers.  'Tin  really  tired,  uncle,  and  you  know  I 
never  was  much  of  a  dancer." 


158  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Very  good,"  said  Challoner,  "as  you  wish.  I'll 
make  your  explanations  to  Mary." 

He  went  away.  In  a  few  minutes  the  dining- 
room  was  deserted.  Chalmers  slipped  on  his  army 
overcoat,  and  went  into  the  conservatory.  Outside 
was  a  broad  terrace,  silvered  by  the  moonlight.  He 
lit  a  cigar,  and  sat  down  on  a  stone  seat,  at  the  end 
of  the  terrace.  The  immense  quiet  of  the  night  lay 
upon  the  earth.  He  did  not  think — thought  seemed 
dissolved;  he  sank  into  a  condition  of  passivity.  Life 
appeared  a  dream,  Smithson  and  the  crowd  of  people 
in  the  ball-room  but  shadows  on  a  mirror,  a  cloud  of 
breath  that  stained  it  for  a  moment,  then  melted  into 
nothingness.  He  must  have  sat  there  a  long  time, 
when  he  was  conscious  that  the  distant  dance  music? 
had  stopped  and  a  light  footstep  echoed  on  the  tessel- 
lated floor  of  the  conservatory.  Mary  Challoner 
stepped  out  upon  the  terrace.  Her  back  was  to  the 
sinking  moon,  so  that  her  face  was  to  him  only  a  pale 
oval,  destitute  of  expression.  A  swift  reaction  from 
his  condition  of  passivity  stirred  him.  Here  was  no 
breath  upon  a  mirror,  but  a  living  beautiful  creature, 
instinct  with  thought  and  feeling,  and  he  knew  he 
wanted  her.  He  had  been  wanting  her  through  all 
those  years  of  separation  and  deadly  peril.  In  spite 
of  all  that  he  had  seen  of  fault  and  failing  in  her,  he 
wanted  her  still. 

"Mary,"  he  said,  "there's  something  I  want  to  say 
to  you.  Will  you  listen,  dear?" 

"I  can't  stop  more  than  a  minute  or  two,  John.  I've 
promised  the  last  dance  to  Harry  Johnson.  Father 


MARY  CHALLONER  159 

sent  me  to  tell  you  we're  going  home  in  a  quarter  of  an 
hour." 

Her  voice  sounded  cold  and  formal. 

He  stood  beside  her,  trying  to  read  the  expression 
in  her  face. 

"Mary,"  he  said,  "do  you  know  I  love  you?  Do 
you  love  me?" 

"I  thought  I  did  once.  It  was  when  you  went  to 
the  war.  But  I  find  I  was  mistaken.  You  are 
changed.  You  are  not  the  same  man." 

"My  love  is  not  changed,  Mary." 

"Ah,  but  you  are.  You  don't  know  it,  perhaps,  but 
you  are.  You've  become  so  dreadfully  serious." 

"I've  had  things  to  make  me  serious,  but  I've  never 
ceased  to  think  of  you,  and  always  in  one  way." 

A  note  of  impatience  and  scorn  came  into  her  voice. 
It  rang  keen  and  clear  as  the  clash  of  swords. 

"But  I  haven't  thought  of  you  in  that  way — that's 
the  point.  If  I  had,  what  you've  done  to-night  would 
have  cured  me.  You've  made  yourself  ridiculous. 
Everybody's  talking  about  it.  And  you've  refused  to 
dance  with  me.  You've  preferred  to  sit  out  here  and 
sulk.  You've  made  me  ashamed  of  you." 

"Why,  Mary,  I  never  thought " 

"No,"  she  interrupted,  "you've  not  thought  of  any- 
one but  yourself.  I  prefer  people  who  are  a  little 
more  human,  a  little  more  ordinary,  if  you  like.  Ever 
since  you  came  back  you've  been  trying  to  make  me 
feel  that  I'm  not  up  to  your  standard.  Perhaps  I'm 
not,  but  one  thing  I'm  sure  of,  I  don't  want  to  be. 


160  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

So  please  don't  speak  to  me  again  as  you've  spoken 
to-night.  I  assure  you  that  it's  useless." 

"Mary,  dear,  won't  you  listen  a  moment.  Let  me 
explain." 

"I  can't  stop.     I  must  go  back  for  the  last  dance." 

The  music  had  recommenced.  She  turned  from 
him  without  another  word. 

So  this  was  the  end  of  all  his  dreams.  He  felt  a 
little  stunned  and  bewildered.  Yet  he  could  not  say 
that  she  had  given  him  no  warning  of  the  real  nature 
of  her  thoughts.  From  the  first  hour  of  his  return 
he  had  been  conscious  of  a  gulf  that  had  opened  be- 
tween them.  With  pained  recognition  he  saw  now 
what  that  gulf  really  was.  The  war  had  created  a 
new  order  of  men  and  women.  They  alone  under- 
stood each  other.  They  understood  each  other 
through  the  sacrament  of  shared  experiences.  Mrs. 
San  ford,  with  whom  he  had  talked  but  a  few  minutes, 
understood  him,  because  she  had  lost  her  son.  The  old 
man  grieving  for  his  son  in  the  train  from  Plymouth, 
the  Red  Cross  nurses,  the  young  naval  lieutenants — 
they  understood  each  other  and  he  understood  them. 
They  spoke  a  common  language,  the  language  of  a 
common  experience.  His  uncle,  Mary,  Smithson,  all 
this  pleasant  crowd  of  comfortable  persons  in  Smith- 
son's  ball-room  did  not  understand.  Those  who  had 
gone  through  Gethsemane  remained  a  race  apart. 
Those  who  sat  and  warmed  themselves  by  the  fire  in 
the  High  Priest's  Court  were  also  a  race  apart. 
Henceforth  mankind  was  divided  into  two  classes 
only,  those  baptised  by  suffering  into  a  new  commun- 


MARY  CHALLONER  161 

ity,  and  those  who  were  unbaptised.  There  were  no 
more  French,  British  or  Americans — the  new  align- 
ment rested  on  spiritual  bases,  the  new  separation  was 
of  the  soul,  not  the  blood.  With  an  intense  luminous- 
ness  of  thought  he  saw  these  things.  They  had  the 
distinctness  and  authority  of  a  revelation.  He  had 
lost  Mary,  not  because  either  he  or  she  willed  it,  but  be- 
cause they  were  moving  on  different  planes  of  being. 

And  then,  quite  suddenly,  and  without  definite  voli- 
tion on  his  part,  his  thought  turned  to  Claire  Gunni- 
son.  She  was  a  woman  created  by  the  war.  She 
had  not  been  able  to  detach  his  heart  from  Mary  as 
long  as  the  ideal  of  Mary,  which  he  cherished  in  his 
heart,  was  unassailed.  He  saw  her  now  with  different 
eyes.  Her  views  of  life  had  startled  and  offended 
him,  but  what  a  largeness  of  generosity  was  in  her 
nature,  what  tenderness  and  comprehension.  Certain 
words  of  hers,  spoken  on  that  day  when  they  parted 
in  New  York  came  back  to  him — "If  ever  you  should 
need  me,  you  will  find  me  your  true  friend."  It  was 
imperative  that  he  should  leave  Melrose.  It  would 
be  painful  both  to  himself  and  Mary  to  meet  again 
in  common  intercourse.  Had  not  the  hour  come  when 
he  needed  and  might  claim  Claire's  friendship? 

The  dance-music  in  the  ball-room  still  continued. 
He  felt  that  he  could  not  face  the  light-hearted  crowd 
that  would  presently  come  forth  from  its  doors.  He 
wanted  to  be  alone.  He  found  his  army  cap,  left 
word  with  the  butler  that  he  was  walking  home,  and, 
crossing  the  terrace,  stepped  down  into  the  silent  gar- 
den and  the  spacious  night. 


CHAPTER  VI 
YALE 


IN  the  foyer  and  passages  of  the  Biltmore  there  was 
an  immense  coming  and  going  of  all  sorts  of  people. 
Chalmers  sat  alone  watching  the  moving  crowd.  He 
had  left  Melrose  that  morning  after  a  difficult  inter- 
view with  his  uncle. 

"I  don't  understand  your  attitude  at  all,"  Hugh 
Challoner  had  said  to  him.  "I  did  hope  that  you  and 
Mary  would  have  arranged  your  affairs  differently. 
I'm  not  as  young  as  I  was,  and  I  confess  it  would  have 
been  a  great  satisfaction  to  me  if  you  could  have 
entered  my  office,  and  in  time  taken  my  place  and  set- 
tled down  with  Mary  at  Melrose." 

"I'm  afraid  that  is  impossible,"  he  replied. 

"I  don't  see  why  it  should  be.  Mary  is  after  all  a 
child  and  doesn't  know  her  own  mind.  You've 
startled  her,  I  can  see  that.  She's  frightened.  If 
you'll  give  her  a  little  time  to  understand  you  better 
I  think  things  will  come  right.  Don't  you  think  you 
ought  to  try?" 

"It's  not  a  question  of  understanding  me,  uncle.  It 
162 


YALE  163 

seems  we've  moved  apart.  We're  neither  of  U3  what 
we  were  four  years  ago." 

"You're  very  much  the  same,"  Challoner  replied 
with  a  grim  smile.  "You  know  you  were  always  very 
resolute  in  your  own  opinions.  Somehow  you  never 
quite  fitted  into  the  ordinary  scheme  of  things.  I 
don't  suppose  you're  quite  aware  of  it.  But  let  me 
tell  you — and  I  say  it  in  all  kindness- — life  has  taught 
me  that  the  more  we  stick  to  normal  paths  the  more 
likely  are  we  to  find  happiness." 

"Am  I  abnormal  then?" 

"I  think  you  are  at  present.  You're  strained  and 
excited.  I'm  not  surprised  at  that,  considering  all 
you've  been  through.  I  can't  quite  express  what  I 
mean,  but  it  seems  to  me  you're  a  little  hysteric. 
Why  don't  you  go  away  and  play  golf  for  a  month? 
You  want  something  to  take  your  thoughts  off  your- 
self, and  there's  nothing  like  golf  for  that." 

Had  he  become  abnormal?  Chalmers  wasn't  sure. 
What  was  normality?  Was  it  simply  doing  what 
everyone  else  did,  thinking  what  everyone  else 
thought?  If  this  was  normality,  it  was  indistinguish- 
able from  dullness.  It  was  a  base  weed  which  grew; 
out  of  a  soil  in  which  individuality  was  buried. 

Chalmers  looked  at  his  uncle's  tired  face,  and 
thought  of  what  his  life  had  been.  The  pursuit  of 
normality  had  done  little  enough  for  him.  A  certain 
collect  which  he  had  often  heard  in  Church  spoke  of 
following  too  much  the  devices  and  desires  of  our  own 
heart.  The  real  trouble  with  men  was  that  they  didn't 
follow  them  enough.  The  desires  and  devices  of  his 


J64  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

own  heart  would  have  made  Hugh  Challoner  a  pro- 
fessor and  perhaps  a  college  president,  in  which  posi- 
tion all  the  finest  elements  of  his  nature  would  have 
thrived.  By  refusing  to  follow  them  he  had  become 
a  jaded  rich  man.  He  had  really  thwarted  the  true 
impulses  of  his  nature,  and  in  living  what  the  world 
prescribed  as  a  normal  life  had  forfeited  superiority 
and  missed  true  happiness. 

As  if  in  unconscious  affirmation  of  this  diagnosis 
Challoner  again  spoke  wistfully  of  his  sense  of  ap- 
proaching age. 

"I'm  growing  old,  and  I  want  someone  to  succeed 
me,  John.  I've  not  got  out  of  life  what  I  hoped  for. 
I've  succeeded  in  what  I  set  out  to  do,  but  there's  a 
kind  of  emptiness  in  it  all.  But  if  I  could  see  you  and 
Mary  married,  and  settled  in  the  old  house,  with  chil- 
dren round  you,  I  should  feel  that  after  all  I'd  made 
something  worth  while  of  my  life." 

He  had  succeeded  after  his  fashion,  and  found 
emptiness.  Yet  he  wanted  his  nephew  to  tread  the 
same  path.  Chalmers  was  conscious  of  the  irony  in 
the  appeal,  but  still  more  of  the  pathos. 

"I  do  deeply  appreciate  your  kindness,"  he  said, 
"and  it  seems  churlish  to  refuse  it.  Some  of  the 
things  you  plan  for  me  I  may  perhaps  be  able  to  do. 
I  may  be  glad  and  thankful  to  enter  your  business.  I 
don't  know.  I  can't  promise.  I  think  in  any  case  I 
had  better  go  away  now." 

"Yes,  go  away,  and  give  yourself  time  to  think 
things  over  quietly,  my  dear  boy.  I  don't  want  to 
hurry  you.  And  don't  forget  what  I  said  about  golf 


YALE  165 

— it's  the  finest  remedy  in  the  .world  for  introspective 
thought." 

In  this  rare  exchange  of  confidences  he  had  come 
nearer  to  his  uncle  than  he  had  ever  been  before.  He 
parted  with  him  in  a  spirit  of  real  tenderness.  Chal- 
loner  came  with  him  to  the  station,  and  saw  him  com- 
fortably settled  in  the  club-car,  and  put  his  arm  round 
his  shoulders  as  he  said  good-bye. 

"Don't  let  anything  that  Mary  said  distress  you," 
was  his  last  piece  of  advice.  "One  thing  I  can  tell  you 
with  confidence,  she's  heart-whole.  If  she  doesn't 
love  you,  she  doesn't  love  anyone  else.  That's  some 
consolation,  isn't  it?" 

He  was  not  sure  that  it  was.  As  the  train  moved 
off,  speeding  through  the  sunny  silent  landscape,  he 
had  a  sense  of  escape.  He  was  leaving  something 
that  he  was  not  reluctant  to  leave.  He  was  breaking 
a  chain. 

He  could  not  define  his  sensations  with  any  rational 
lucidity.  All  that  he  valued  most  in  human  life  was 
at  Melrose.  The  place  was  endeared  to  him  by  long 
familiarity.  Yet  some  mysterious  instinct  warned 
him  that  his  life  was  not  to  be  lived  there ;  that  Mel- 
rose,  with  all  its  kindly  associations,  was  inimical  to 
him.  He  even  felt  a  sense  of  relief  when  the  train 
rounded  the  long  curve  of  the  valley,  and  the  pleasant 
hills,  with  their  carefully  scattered  mansions,  sunk 
out  of  sight. 

Yet  he  felt  bereaved  and  lonely.  He  felt  as  the 
most  eager  of  sea  adventurers  feels  when  the  shore- 
line becomes  a  bank  of  mist,  and  the  uncompanion- 


166  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

able  sea  stretches  out,  league  after  league,  in  dazzling 
emptiness.  The  unad venturous  life  of  narrow  streets, 
red-tiled  roofs,  old  gardens,  all  rooted  in  an  imme- 
morial past,  a  secure  hive  of  men,  wherein  human 
creatures  go  about  the  toils  of  life,  in  the  old  com- 
mon ways  of  love  and  birth  and  death,  certain  of  a 
rest  at  last  beneath  the  sod  where  their  childish  games 
were  played,  never  calls  the  voyager  with  so  strong  a 
lure  as  in  the  moment  when  he  turns  his  back  on  it. 
Loneliness  is  three-parts  recollection.  Chalmers  had 
never  felt  so  lonely  as  that  night  when  he  sat  solitary 
in  the  Biltmore  watching  the  moving  crowd. 


n 

In  the  crowd  he  saw  a  figure  he  recognised — Major 
Caldwell.  They  had  parted  in  London  with  the  hope 
of  meeting  again  in  New  York,  but  no  correspondence 
had  passed  between  them.  It  was  both  a  surprise  and 
delight  thus  to  meet. 

At  the  end  of  the  corridor  they  found  a  quiet 
corner  and  began  to  talk  eagerly  of  all  that  had  hap- 
pened since  that  last  night  in  London. 

"I  left  unexpectedly  on  the  boat  that  followed 
yours,"  Caldwell  explained. 

"How  does  America  impress  you?"  said  Chalmers. 

"Very  strangely,"  said  Caldwell.  "It  seems  to 
me  as  if  it  stands  at  the  cross-roads  of  destiny — it's 
either  going  a  long  step  forward  or  it  will  step  a  long 
way  back."  . 

"Forward  to  idealism,  back  to  materialism,  eh?" 


YALE  167 

"Precisely.  And  I  don't  know  which.  Anything 
may  happen." 

They  began  to  talk  of  men  they  had  known. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Caldwell,  "I've  got  some  news 
about  your  two  friends  Foley  and  Baldy.  Foley,  it 
seems,  is  trying  to  create  some  kind  of  league  of  sol- 
diers to  control  national  politics.  Baldy  has  been  be- 
fore the  magistrate  for  resisting  the  police." 

He  drew  from  his  pocket-book  two  newspaper  cut- 
tings, which  he  handed  to  Chalmers. 

The  first  was  from  a  Baltimore  paper.  It  gave  an 
account  of  a  meeting  held  in  a  large  hall  in  Baltimore 
at  which  Foley  had  made  what  the  reporter  called  an 
inflammatory  speech.  The  substance  of  it  was  that 
returning  soldiers  had  had  a  raw  deal  from  the  gov- 
ernment. They  had  come  back  to  find  the  situations 
they  had  held  before  the  war  occupied  by  others,  and 
no  sustained  or  intelligent  effort  had  been  made  to  find 
them  work.  They  had  gone  from  place  to  place,  seek- 
ing employment,  only  to  find  the  supply  of  labour  far 
in  excess  of  the  demand.  In  many  instances  the  jobs 
they  had  left  were  held  by  women,  who  were  working 
at  a  lower  wage.  It  was  the  old  story  of  the  ingrati- 
tude of  nations  to  returning  soldiers.  There  was  only 
one  remedy,  a  combination  of  soldiers  strong  enough 
to  control  politics.  There  were  three  million  of  them; 
let  them  combine.  Let  them  insist  on  nominating 
only  soldiers  for  all  public  offices.  Since  the  country 
would  not  give  justice,  let  them  take  it.  It  was  time 
to  tell  the  whole  tribe  of  selfish  and  muddled  politi- 
cians, the  fat,  contented  bourgeoisie  who  had  profited 


J68  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

by  the  war,  that  three  million  men  trained  in  the  use 
of  weapons  of  war  were  not  to  be  trifled  with " 

The  paragraph  about  Baldy  was  very  brief — it 
stated  that  a  Canadian  private,  giving  the  name  of 
William  Baldwin,  but  commonly  known  as  Baldy,  had 
been  arrested  for  soliciting  alms  on  the  public  streets, 
and  had  resisted  the  police.  His  defence  was  that 
he  could  get  no  work.  He  was  remanded  for  further, 
enquiries. 

"You  knew  both  these  men  intimately,  didn't  you?" 
said  Caldwell. 

"Yes,  I  did.  Baldy's  one  of  the  best  little  fellows 
who  ever  lived.  If  he  says  he  can't  get  work  I'm 
sure  he  speaks  the  truth,  for  he  is  the  kind  of  man 
who  really  loves  work.  As  for  Foley,  he's  an  Irish- 
man, with  an  Irishman's  genius  for  politics,  and  an 
Irishman's  genial  recklessness.  As  for  his  idea  of 
a  Soldier's  League,  it's  something  I've  thought  of  my- 
self, and  so  have  thousands  of  others.  I  don't  think 
we  need  trouble  ourselves  over  Foley — he's  quite  cap- 
able of  taking  care  of  himself.  But  I  owe  Baldy  a 
debt  that  I  can  never  repay,  and  I  feel  I  ought  to  go 
to  him  at  once  and  see  what  can  be  done  for  him." 

"I  can  help  you  there,"  said  Caldwell.  "The  thing 
that  brought  me  home  so  suddenly  was  a  request  from 
the  Administration  to  give  help  in  organising  a  board 
which  is  to  deal  with  this  very  problem  of  unemployed 
soldiers.  If  you  like  I'll  arrange  for  us  both  to  see 
Baldy  to-morrow  morning." 

"I'll  certainly  go  with  you." 


YALE  169 

"And  now  tell  me  something  about  yourself.  What 
have  you  been  doing  since  your  return?" 

From  the  first  he  had  recognised  in  Caldwell  quali- 
ties which  drew  out  confidence.  It  was  not  only  that 
he  recognised  in  him  intellectual  sympathies,  but  what 
is  much  more  rare,  spiritual  comprehension.  What 
he  had  found  so  painfully  lacking  at  Melrose  was  this 
quality  of  spiritual  comprehension.  And  so,  being 
still  overwrought  emotionally  by  his  experiences  at 
Melrose,  he  poured  out  his  heart  without  reserve  to 
Major  Caldwell. 

He  told  him  of  the  hopes  with  which  he  had  gone 
to  Melrose  and  of  his  bitter  disappointment. 

"I  felt  all  the  time,"  he  said,  "as  though  I  did  not 
belong  to  their  world  nor  they  to  mine.  I  was  an 
alien.  I  was  speaking  into  a  void.  It  was  something 
like  those  air-pockets  aviators  describe,  sudden  holes 
in  the  atmosphere  into  which  the  aeroplane  drops  help- 
lessly. I  had  been  sailing  along  in  strong  air  and 
bright  sunshine;  then  suddenly  the  void  met  me,  and 
I  went  toppling  down  into  its  grim  pit.  You  can't 
have  winged  thoughts  or  winged  emotions  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  Melrose.  It  was  the  dull  self-satisfied 
complacency  of  everyone  that  hurt  me  most.  I  kept 
asking  myself  was  this  America,  the  true  America, 
which  had  risen  to  so  great  a  height  of  idealism  ?  Had 
all  the  idealism  come  tumbling  down  like  the  aero- 
plane in  the  air-pocket  ?  Or  had  America  never  really 
soared,  never  put  on  the  wings  of  the  morning  ?" 

"No,  it  wasn't  the  real  America,"  said  Caldwell. 


i;o  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"It  was  no  more  the  real  America  than  the  occasional 
air-pocket  is  the  atmosphere." 

"But  you  can  realise  how  I  felt?" 

"Perfectly.  We  all  feel  it  more  or  less.  You  have 
come  across  a  worse  air-pocket  than  most  of  us,  that's 
all." 

"Well,  I  hope  I'll  have  strength  enough  to  climb  up 
into  the  buoyant  air  again." 

"Of  course  you  will.  And,  if  you'll  let  me,  I'll  pre- 
scribe for  you.  We'll  look  after  Baldy  to-morrow, 
and  then,  unless  you've  some  good  reason  against  it, 
we'll  go  down  to  Yale  for  the  week-end.  I'm  going 
in  any  case.  I  want  to  look  up  my  old  friends,  and 
I'd  really  like  you  to  come  with  me.  I  think  you'll 
find  another  America  there,  the  true  America.  If  you 
want  to  know  the  soul  of  a  country  go  where  the 
young  are.  Old  men  and  very  prosperous  men  have 
often  lost  their  souls.  Young  men,  thank  God, 
haven't  had  time  to  lose  theirs.  And  what  the  young 
men  of  to-day  think  the  world  will  think  to-morrow." 

"All  right.  I'll  come.  But  we  must  look  after 
Baldy  first." 

"Baldy  first,  of  course.  Perhaps  it  wouldn't  be  a 
bad  plan  to  take  him  with  us.  I  fancy  he  too,  poor 
fellow,  has  got  into  a  peculiarly  dismal  air-pocket." 

They  saw  Baldy  next  day.  The  influence  of  Major 
Caldwell  had  been  exerted  to  obtain  his  release,  and 
about  ten  o'clock  he  came  to  the  Biltmore.  The  little 
man,  in  spite  of  his  misfortunes,  looked  very  trig  and 
neat ;  his  worn  uniform  was  carefully  brushed,  he  was 


YALE  171 

clean-shaved,  and  his  chubby  face  wore  its  character- 
istic grin. 

"Well,  Baldy,  what's  this  I  hear  about  you?"  said 
Chalmers. 

"I've  been  in  a  little  trouble,  sir.     But  'twasn't  my 
fault." 

"They  say  you  resisted  the  police,  Baldy." 
"'Twasn't  exactly  resisting,   sir;  not  what  you'd 
call  resisting.     I  might  have  given  the  cop  a  bit  of  a 
shove;  but  how  was  I  to  know  he'd  call  it  resisting?" 
"But  you  were  begging,  weren't  you  ?" 
"I  were.     And  I'd  like  to  know  what  else  there 
was  to  do  ?     Also,  it  weren't  exactly  begging.    I  asked 
a  gentleman  if  he  could  tell  me  where  I  could  get 
work,  and  it  wasn't  my  fault  if  he  gave  me  a  dollar, 
now  was  it?     On  my  oath  that's  all  I  did,  and  then 
the  cop  come  along.     I  guess  he  wanted  that  dollar." 
Baldy's  explanation  was  delivered  with  such  an  air 
of  engaging  innocence,  that  both  Caldwell  and  Chal- 
mers broke  into  laughter. 

"And  then  you  remonstrated  with  him,  eh?" 
"Just  a  little  shove  with  my  elbow,  that's  all,  sir. 
But  I  guess  that  cop  wasn't  in  good  condition.     He 
were  a  fat  man.     He  looked  like  a  Hun." 

"But    about    getting    work,    Baldy,    what's    the 
trouble?" 

"Why  just  this,  there  ain't  any  for  a  man  like  me." 

"I  thought  there  was  a  scheme  to  put  you  on  a  farm. 

Canada  has  lots  of  land  to  give  away;  you  know  you 

can  claim  a  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  homestead 

land." 


;i72  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"And  what  do  I  want  with  a  farm,  sir?  I  know 
all  about  them  farms.  I've  heard  them  talked  about 
often  enough.  They  ain't  farms,  they're  just  land, 
and  usually  fifty  miles  from  nowhere.  If  a  man  don't 
mind  being  lonely,  and  never  seeing  nothing  but  his 
own  shadow,  he  might  have  a  shot  at  it,  but  I  ain't 
that  sort  of  man.  I  like  being  with  folks.  I  can't 
fancy  sitting  like  a  lonely  jackrabbit  on  a  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  of  land,  with  not  a  living  soul  to  speak  to. 
I've  been  living  with  men,  and  for  all  that  folk  at 
home  think  of  it,  a  camp's  a  jolly  sort  of  place,  with 
lots  of  fun  and  company,  and  war  ain't  half  as  bad  as 
it's  painted.  At  all  events  there  ain't  no  time  to  be 
melancholy;  but  out  there,  on  one  of  these  'ere  give- 
away farms,  I  know  I'd  be  drove  to  suicide  inside  of 
six  weeks." 

The  genial  grin  disappeared  from  Baldy's  face  as 
he  spoke,  and  his  chubby  face  was  sharpened  into  a 
look  of  tragic  intensity. 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  work,  you  know  that,  sir,"  he 
added  earnestly.  "I'm  ready  to  do  most  anything, 
but  it's  hard  to  find  nobody  wants  you.  Sometimes 
I'm  kind  of  sorry  I  ever  came  back.  I'd  ha'  been 
happier  if  I'd  died  out  there,  like  so  many  did." 

"But  what  sort  of  work  do  you  really  want,  Baldy  ?" 

"Well,  sir,"  he  said,  his  good  humour  returning, 
"if  you'll  let  me  say  it,  your  buttons  ain't  shone  up 
like  they  used  to  be,  and  whoever  cleaned  your  boots 
didn't  know  his  job  overwell.  You'd  ha'  strafed  me 
good  and  hard  if  I'd  let  you  go  out  in  those  there 
trenches  a-looking  like  you  do.  Can't  you  take  me  on 


YALE  173 

as  your  batman  again?  I'd  serve  you  honest,  an'  as 
for  money,  anything  you  says  goes." 

"So  you  think  my  boots  aren't  the  proper  thing," 
said  Chalmers  with  a  laugh. 

"I  know  they  ain't,  sir.  You've  been  to  these  'ere 
shoe  shine  parlours,  where  they  put  acid  on  the  leather, 
what  rots  it.  I  use  elbow-grease,  which  is  what  they 
never  heard  of.  If  you'd  just  let  me  have  a  turn  at 
'em,  I'd  soon  show  you  the  difference." 

"Well,  they  might  be  improved,  certainly,"  said 
Chalmers. 

"They  might,"  said  Baldy  with  emphasis.  "Won't 
you  let  me  have  a  go  at  'em?" 

"All  right,"  said  Chalmers.  "I  don't  really  know 
what  to  do  with  a  valet,  but  I'm  not  going  to  let 
you  take  to  begging,  Baldy,  and  try  your  hand  at 
assaulting  policemen." 

"Not  assaulting,  sir — only  expostulating,  so  to 
speak.  Just  a  little  shove  with  my  elbow,  that's  all." 

"I'm  afraid  your  elbow  is  rather  a  remarkable  one, 
Baldy.  I  rather  think,  applied  as  you  applied  it  to 
the  cop,  it  must  have  resembled  pretty  closely  the  kick 
of  a  horse." 

"It's  a  very  good  elbow  for  cleaning  boots,  any- 
way," said  Baldy,  with  his  most  insinuating  grin. 
"And  now,  sir,  since  you've  engaged  me  as  your  val — , 
I  mean  your  batman,  will  you  please  tell  me  what 
you  want  me  to  do  for  you,  after  I've  attended  to 
these  here  boots  and  buttons  ?" 

"I'm  going  to  take  you  a  little  journey  with  me, 
Baldy.  We're  going  to  Yale.  You'll  find  my  best 


174  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

uniform  in  ray  trunk.  You'd  better  get  it  out,  and 
clean  the  buttons,  and  pack  my  valise.  But  I  needn't 
tell  you  what  to  do.  You  know  all  about  it.  And, 
let  me  tell  you,  Baldy,  I'm  delighted  to  have  you  back 
again." 

"I'll  serve  you  faithful,"  he  replied.  "I  always  did, 
and  I  always  will,  sir." 

"Well,"  said  Caldwell,  when  Baldy  left  the  room, 
"that  man  represents  one  of  the  serious  problems  of 
what  we  call  reconstruction.  We  want  to  reconstruct 
him  on  a  plan  of  our  own,  and  he  doesn't  want  to  be 
reconstructed  in  our  way.  What  he  says  about  a 
camp  being  a  jolly  place  is  quite  true.  He's  had  the 
time  of  his  life  as  a  soldier — good  food,  genial  com- 
pany, sports,  amusement,  and  all  that  kind  of  thing. 
The  civilian  never  thinks  of  that  side  of  things.  The 
picture  he  draws  in  his  mind  of  a  soldier's  life  is  all 
bloodshed,  horror  and  misery ;  he  does  not  understand 
the  brotherhood  of  camps.  He  assumes  that  the  sol- 
dier has  done  his  bit  against  the  grain,  with  an  un- 
appeasable desire  to  get  it  done;  whereas  he  has  really 
been  happier  than  he  ever  was  before,  and  dreads  the 
return  to  civil  life  a  good  deal  more  than  he  ever 
dreaded  wounds  and  death.  And  so  the  wise  people 
who  sit  in  swivel  chairs  imagine  that  the  returning 
soldier  will  jump  at  any  chance  of  quiet  and  security. 
Whereas  the  one  thing  he's  become  totally  unfitted  for 
is  the  kind  of  quiet  which  implies  separation  from  his 
fellows." 

"The  loneliness  of  a  farm,  I  suppose  you  mean." 

"The  worse  loneliness,  as  Baldy  put  it,  not  of  a 


YALE  175 

farm,  but  of  land  in  some  remote  place,  where  human 
society  is  lacking.  The  whole  nature  of  his  life  has 
made  him  a  social  creature,  with  strong  ties  of  fellow- 
ship, and  a  great  sense  of  dependence  on  others.  How 
can  you  expect  him  to  cut  himself  off  from  all  this, 
and  settle  on  a  lonely  homestead  fifty  miles  from  a 
railway?  He  can't  do  it.  If  you  paved  his  hundred 
and  sixty  acres  with  gold  and  diamonds,  he'd  still  hate 
the  solitude,  and  long  for  crowded  streets,  movies, 
theatres  and  the  gay  bustle  of  collective  life.  You 
can  tempt  a  horse  with  good  pasturage  on  a  solitary 
prairie,  though  even  the  horse,  for  all  I  know,  has  his 
own  memory  of  frantic  gallops  with  the  guns,  and 
would  neigh  with  delight  to  hear  again  the  cry  of 
trumpets  and  the  shouting  of  the  captains.  But  you 
certainly  can't  tempt  a  soldier  who  has  known  the 
heroic  collective  energy  of  mortal  struggles  with  any 
such  paltry  bribe." 

"But  I  thought  the  plan  was  for  what  may  be  called 
neighbourhood  farms,  a  sort  of  community  farming." 

"The  plan,  yes.  If  the  scheme  had  been  begun  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  it  might  have  amounted  to 
something  by  this  time.  But  no  one  looked  far 
enough  ahead  for  that.  The  result  is  that  millions  of 
men  have  come  back  without  any  adequate  plan  for 
their  employment.  I  don't  say  the  community  farm 
hasn't  attractions.  I  can  conceive  a  series  of  farms 
all  gathered  round  an  accessible  centre,  so  that  social 
relations  might  be  possible.  And  I  can  conceive  thou- 
sands of  men,  used  to  an  open  air  life,  reluctant  to 
return  to  sedentary  pursuits  and  unfitted  for  them, 


176  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

eager  to  live  upon  the  land.  But  they  won't  consent 
to  be  marooned.  And  the  community  farm,  which 
was  to  give  them  an  open  air  life  without  the  isola- 
tion of  the  remote  homestead,  is  still  very  much  of  an 
unfulfilled  dream.  We  are  working  toward  it,  no 
doubt;  but  in  the  meantime  men  like  Baldy  may  very 
easily  drift  into  Bolshevism  and  even  crime." 

"Bolshevism?" 

"Yes,  Bolshevism,  for  what  is  Bolshevism  but  this, 
exasperation  at  injustice  ?  Every  man  is  contented  as 
long  as  he  believes  that  society  is  giving  him  a  fair 
deal.  The  moment  he  believes  society  is  not  dealing 
fairly  with  him  he  is  ready  to  deal  unfairly  by  society, 
and  will  not  stop  by  claiming  what  is  justly  his,  but 
will  seize  on  that  to  which  he  has  no  claim.  That  is 
what  Bolshevism  is — the  robbed  becoming  robbers." 

The  conversation  was  interrupted  by  the  entrance 
of  Baldy.  The  little  man's  face  was  red  and  smiling, 
and  small  beads  of  perspiration  stood  on  his  forehead. 
He  laid  upon  the  table  a  military  tunic,  the  buttons  of 
which  shone  like  gold,  and  put  on  the  floor  beside  the 
table  a  pair  of  long  military  boots,  so  highly  polished 
that  they  were  actually  dazzling. 

"You  can  see  your  face  in  them,  sir,"  he  said 
proudly. 

He  bustled  into  the  bath-room,  and  could  be  heard 
stropping  Chalmers'  razors. 

"Small  danger  of  Bolshevism  there,"  said  Chalmers, 
with  a  smile. 

"No  man  is  a  Bolshevist,"  retorted  Caldwell,  "who 
has  something  to  do  that  he  believes  he  can  do  better 


YALE  177 

than  anyone  else,  if  it's  only  cleaning  boots  and  polish- 
ing buttons.  The  Bolshevist  is  a  man  who  has  noth- 
ing to  do  that  fits  his  capacity,  so  he  turns  his  capacity 
to  mischief.  The  Bolshevist  achieves  evil  simply  be- 
cause he's  not  had  an  adequate  opportunity  of 
achieving  good." 

in 

The  next  day,  Saturday,  they  went  to  Yale.  To 
both  Chalmers  and  Caldwell  it  was  a  true  home- 
coming. 

What  is  it  makes  the  charm  of  Yale?  It  does  not 
bear  comparison  with  Oxford.  It  is  not  finely  placed 
as  some  other  American  universities  are.  The  uni- 
versity buildings  can  nowhere  be  seen  to  advantage. 
They  do  not  rise  out  of  green  lawns  smooth  with  the 
passage  of  the  centuries,  they  stand  in  no  dignified 
isolation,  they  are  reflected  in  no  clear,  tranquil 
streams ;  everywhere  the  sordid  town  intrudes  on  them, 
smothering  their  beauty,  jealous  of  their  charm,  hid- 
ing their  significance.  The  old  town  green,  with  its 
two  white  churches  and.  its  vast  elms,  still  remains, 
as  a  souvenir  of  a  simple  and  austere  past  The  quiet 
which  should  environ  halls  of  learning  is  invaded  on 
all  sides  by  the  clang  of  trolleys,  the  wheels  of  com- 
merce, the  noises  of  incessant  human  struggle  for  the 
material  rewards  of  life.  Yet  the  charm  is  there, 
something  impermeable  and  buoyant,  that  hovers  in 
the  air;  something  intangible  and  spiritual,  a  perfume 
blown  from  hidden  sources,  a  conversation  of  ethereal 
presences  in  the  upper  spaces  of  the  sky,  waves  of 


thought  that  pass  to  and  fro,  penetrating  the  lowef 
atmosphere  with  a  sense  of  brightness  and  harmony. 
The  very  contiguity  of  this  commercial  world  gives 
poignancy  to  this  other  world  of  idealism  on  which  it 
impinges,  which  it  invades  and  would  like  to  over- 
whelm. It  is  so  easy  to  leave  it,  to  forget  it;  to  pass 
from  the  thronged  street  beneath  some  arched  gate- 
way, and  find  a  cloistral  silence.  The  two  worlds  in 
which  man  resides,  the  world  of  the  bodily  life  and  the 
city  of  the  mind,  nowhere  come  together  in  such  sharp 
contrast,  such  visible  antagonism.  Perhaps  that  is 
the  charm  of  Yale;  a  charm  of  vivid  contrast,  of  visi- 
ble collision  between  the  outward  and  the  inward  life 
of  man.  It  is  as  though  in  a  noisy  room,  crowded 
with  mediocre  persons,  a  beautiful  woman  should  ap- 
pear, calm-browed,  reticent,  freshly  virginal,  drawing 
to  herself  the  initiated,  and  divinely  ignorant  of  the 
jealous  inferiorities  which  surround  her  and  would 
push  her  to  the  wall. 

Here  Caldwell  had  taught,  here  Chalmers  had  spent 
his  youth,  and  as  they  drove  past  the  familiar  build- 
ings Chalmers  wondered  whether  he  had  ever  been  so 
truly  happy  as  in  Yale.  Many  memories  came  to 
him  of  long  aimless  conversations  in  college  rooms, 
with  much  happy  jesting,  and  occasional  shy  rapid 
disclosures  of  more  intimate  thought  and  feeling.  He 
had  sometimes  grumbled  at  the  restrictions  of  the  life, 
but  he  saw  now  how  real  was  its  freedom.  Its  privi- 
leges were  so  many,  its  obligations  so  few.  The  joy 
of  life  was  so  fresh :  the  menace  of  life  was  so  little 
realised.  And  then  had  come  the  sudden  catastrophe 


YAIJE 

of  upheaval,  like  a  fire-bell  ringing  in  the  darkness  of 
the  night,  and  he  had  woke  to  find  the  world  ablaze. 
In  a  single  hour  his  boyishness  had  died,  and  Tragedy 
had  touched  him  into  manhood. 

He  passed  the  Elizabethan  Club,  with  a  vivid  pic- 
ture in  his  mind  of  its  quaint  low-ceilinged  rooms  and 
all  its  scholarly  seclusion  and  simplicity.  He  had 
spent  many  hours  there ;  he  remembered,  with  a  smile, 
that  he  had  written  verses  there  of  which  he  was 
doubtfully  proud,  and  had  even  sketched  a  drama. 
How  differently  had  his  life  turned  out  from  all 
that  he  had  planned.  From  those  quiet  rooms  to  the 
battlefields  of  France  how  long  a  journey,  what  an 
unforeseen  transition! 

They  drove  up  Prospect  Hill,  for  the  sake  of  the 
view;  and  then  turned  into  one  of  those  sedate  streets 
where  the  professors  lived — a  street  of  very  plain 
wooden  houses  with  narrow  lawns  and  thriving  elms 
— and  stopped  at  the  door  of  Caldwell's  home.  After 
the  palatial  spaciousness  of  his  uncle's  house  at  Mel- 
rose,  this  seemed  almost  mean.  The  rooms  were 
small,  the  ceilings  low,  the  narrow  staircase  rose  im- 
mediately out  of  the  little  hall,  if  such  it  could  be 
called.  The  furniture  was  all  plain,  old-fashioned,  of 
a  Colonial  solidity :  but  there  were  books  everywhere, 
a  few  good  etchings  on  the  walls  and  flowers  on  the 
table.  A  kind  of  distinction  was  there,  whose  note 
was  extreme  simplicity.  It  was  the  Yale  note,  the 
characteristic  expression  of  a  general  life  expressed  in 
the  terms  of  the  mind  and  not  of  material  possessions. 

They  sat  down  to  a  plain  meal,  served  by  an  old 


i8o  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

housekeeper,  for  Caldwell  was  a  bachelor.  She  was 
a  thick-set  person,  in  whom  the  latitude  nearly  equalled 
the  longitude,  with  a  shrewd  old  face  seamed  and 
wrinkled  with  an  extraordinary  intricacy.  Her  man- 
ner to  Caldwell  was  neatly  balanced  between  mother- 
liness  and  respect,  but  she  evidently  did  not  know 
what  to  make  of  Baldy,  who  insisted  on  standing  be- 
hind Chalmers'  chair,  and  waiting  on  him  with  humble 
vigilance.  After  dinner  they  lit  their  pipes  and  talked, 
and  Baldy  vanished  into  the  kitchen,  where  he  insisted 
on  washing  up  the  dishes. 

The  talk  was  naturally  of  Yale  men  and  Yale  scenes. 
Name  after  name  was  mentioned,  with  the  continual 
question  "What  became  of  him? "  and  the  fre- 
quent answer  that  linked  his  name  with  some  heroism 
of  the  battlefields. 

"You  remember  Letts'  poem  on  the  Spires  of  Ox- 
ford" said  Caldwell.  "There's  one  verse  that  is  al- 
ways in  my  mind,  the  last  verse, 

God  bless  you  noble  gentlemen, 
Who  laid  your  good  lives  down, 

Who  took  the  khaki  and  the  gun 
Instead  of  cap  and  gown; 

God  bring  you  to  some  fairer  place 
Than  even  Oxford  town. 

We  have  not  given  all  that  Oxford  gave,  but  we've 
given  all  we  had.  There's  been  the  same  spirit  of 
heroism  here.  I  wish  we  could  have  seen  the  old  place 
before  the  men  put  off  their  khaki,  when  it  was  a 
camp." 

"I  wonder  how  they're  taking  it?"  said  Chalmers. 

"Most  of  them  are  bitterly  disappointed  that  they 


YALE  181 

didn't  get  overseas.  I've  had  letters  from  them,  since 
the  armistice  was  signed.  They're  full  of  a  noble 
envy  of  those  who  got  into  the  fight,  even  envy  of 
those  who  died." 

"That's  how  we  all  feel  at  times,"  said  Chalmers, 
"You've  quoted  Letts'  poem:  do  you  recollect  a  yet 
more  poignant  one  by  Ford  Madox  Hueffer?  It's 
called  One  Day's  List?  There  are  certain  lines  in  it 
that  stick  in  the  mind,  for  they  have  seized  on  a  real 
emotion  and  expressed  it  with  a  marvellous  truth  and 
force. 

"But  we  who  remain  shall  grow  old, 

We  shall  know  the  cold  of  cheerless 

Winter  and  the  rain  of  autumn  and  the  sting 

Of  poverty,  of  love  despised  and  of  disgraces, 

And  mirrors  showing  stained  and  ageing  faces, 

And  the  long  ranges  of  comfortless  years, 

And  the  long  gamut  of  human  fears. 

But  for  you,  it  shall  be  forever  spring, 

And  you  shall  be  forever  fearless. 

And  only  you  have  white,  straight  tireless  limbs. 

And  only  you,  where  the  water-lily  swims, 

Shall  walk  along  the  pathways,  through  the  willows  of  your  west, 

You  who  went  West 

And  only  you  on  silvery  twilight  pillows 

Shall  take  your  rest 

In  the  soft  glooms 

Of  twilit  rooms  ..." 

The  beautiful  lines,  echoing  through  that  quiet  room, 
moved  each  of  them  deeply.  They  exposed,  almost 
sacrilegiously,  a  thought  that  lay  secret  in  their  hearts, 
the  fear  that  life's  noblest  crest  was  passed  and  hence- 
forth the  road  of  action  sloped  downward.  And  with 
it  came  a  vivid  picture  of  all  those  gallant  Yale  boys, 
each  keyed  up  to  the  high  rhythm  of  sacrifice,  silently 
laying  aside  their  unstained  khaki,  piling  their  unused 


i&2  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

weapons,  gazing  with  wistful  eyes  upon  a  road  trod- 
den by  their  fellows,  where  they  would  never  tread. 

"Well,"  said  Caldwell.  "I  suppose  God  judges  a 
man's  intention  as  well  as  his  performance.  There 
are  martyrs  who  do  not  die.  The  willingness  to  die 
is  the  chief  thing,  and  is  more  than  the  mere  fact  pf 
dying." 

"But  men  can  never  see  it  in  that  way." 

"No,  the  mass  of  men  can't,  but  the  best  men  can. 
I  had  a  letter  the  other  day  from  an  old  friend  of 
mine,  which  touched  this  very  point.  He  said,  'I 
suppose  we  shall  soon  be  erecting  monuments  to  our 
dead  in  every  city  of  America,  and  it  is  perfectly  right 
that  we  should.  But  I've  been  thinking  that  we  shall 
miss  one  of  the  finest  elements  in  the  record  of  heroism 
if  we  don't  erect  monuments,  too,  to  those  who  didn't 
have  the  chance  to  die.  If  St.  Gaudens  were  still  with 
us,  he  would  see  my  point — he  would  design  some- 
thing like  this — a  young  man,  with  his  head  bowed  in 
a  kind  of  noble  shame  over  his  discarded  accoutre- 
ments which  lie  at  his  feet — his  khaki  tunic  half 
stripped  off — his  hand  across  his  brow,  as  if  to  shut 
out  the  vision  of  the  empty  years;  and  beside  him, 
prone,  grasping  his  other  hand,  the  young  man  who 
dies — dies,  claiming  him  as  comrade.  Do  you  see 
it?  And  on  the  pedestal  the  golden  words,  "In  eternal 
gratitude  to  the  men  -who  would  have  gone,  but  could 
not"'  That's  my  old  friend's  suggestion — what  do 
you  think  of  it?" 

"It's  something  Yale  must  do.  She  must  set  the  ex- 
ample. Yale  knows  what  it  means." 


YALE  183 

"Yes,  Yale  knows.  Be  sure  of  it,  there's  many  a  lad 
to-night,  with  his  head  bowed  over  some  useless  book, 
which  he  can't  see  for  the  hot  tears  that  fill  his  eyes; 
because  a  vision  of  ships  and  the  sea,  and  a  winding 
road  in  France,  fills  his  mind — and  across  the  sea,  and 
over  the  road  from  which  a  great  cloud  of  dust  is 
rising,  made  by  the  feet  of  marching  men,  blow  the 
wailing  trumpets  of  unappeasable  regret.  That's  the 
lad  I'm  sorriest  for." 

Through  the  pleasant  dusk  they  strolled  down  Hill- 
side Avenue,  and,  coming  to  Wolsey  Hall,  found  the 
door  open,  and  entered  that  noble  auditorium.  There 
was  light  enough  to  see  the  class  shields  upon  the 
walls,  each  with  its  record  of  the  number  of  men  who 
had  served  their  country.  Someone  was  practising 
at  the  organ.  They  could  see  his  dark  head  aureoled 
by  the  electric  light  above  the  keyboards.  He  was 
playing  vaguely  and  sweetly,  and  the  long,  soft  re- 
verberations filled  the  great  spaces  of  the  hall.  His 
music  was  an  evocation.  One  could  fancy  the  great 
auditorium  filling  slowly  at  the  call  of  the  music;  a 
ghostly  company,  silently  filing  in,  till  the  galleries 
became  "a  cloud  of  witnesses."  The  students  of  an 
older  day  were  there,  frail  presences  with  white  hair 
and  bowed  shoulders;  the  men  of  to-day,  some  crippled 
and  maimed,  some  drawn  from  distant  graves  in  alieri 
soil,  with  the  pallor  of  a  mortal  agony  upon  their 
brows.  Standing  there,  in  that  solemn  emptiness,  one 
could  almost  hear  the  brush  of  elbow  on  elbow  in 
those  moving  ranks,  the  faint  jingle  of  spurs,  the 
whisper  of  lips,  the  intaken  breath;  and  above  all,  in 


I&4  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

the  shadows  of  the  roof,  something  that  was  like  the 
rustle  of  wings,  as  though  the  spirits  of  the  dead  were 
there.  Through  that  soft  organ  music,  piercing  and 
dominating  it,  thrilled  another  sound,  the  far-blown 
cry  of  trumpets  and  the  noise  of  guns,  distant  and 
attenuated  like  echoes  from  a  remote  and  warring 
star. 

"It  is  here  one  feels  the  spirit  of  Yale,"  said  Cald- 
well  in  a  low  voice. 

"The  spirit  of  eternal  youth,"  Chalmers  answered. 

"The  spirit  which  must  save  America,  if  it  can  be 
saved,"  was  Caldwell's  comment.  "Wasn't  it  Arnold 
who  called  Oxford  the  home  of  lost  causes?  Yale  is 
the  womb  out  of  which  a  new  day  is  being  perpetually 
reborn." 

They  went  back  to  Caldwell's  home,  and  till  long 
after  midnight,  talked  gravely  and  intimately  of 
things  seldom  mentioned  between  men — the  nature  of 
the  soul,  the  mystery  of  spiritual  instincts,  the  real 
meaning  of  human  life. 

"I  suppose  in  the  last  analysis,"  said  Caldwell, 
"faith  is  simply  a  stubborn  instinct  in  the  existence  of 
things  which  lie  beyond  the  senses.  One  says,  'This 
must  be  true'  of  something  that  can't  be  proved  true, 
and  just  rests  there.  When  you've  reached  that  point 
nothing  can  move  you  from  it." 

"Isn't  that  irrational?"  asked  Chalmers. 

"Of  course  it's  irrational.  So  are  all  the  greater 
passions  of  life — love,  sacrifice,  heroism.  The  mo- 
ment a  man  surrenders  himself  to  an  emotion  greater 
than  himself  he  moves  out  of  the  clutch  of  reason. 


YALE  185 

He's  in  a  world  of  new  dimensions.  All  the  greatest 
acts  of  life  are  achieved  by  those  who  venture  beyond 
reason." 

"Is  that  how  you  interpret  religion?" 
"I  do,  most  certainly.  Religion  is  God's  invitation 
to  give  ourselves  to  the  play  of  unknown  forces.  I've 
never  been  in  the  least  affected  by  the  ordinary  argu- 
ments for  religion.  There's  the  statement,  for  ex- 
ample, that  for  long  ages  men,  who  certainly  appear 
wiser  than  ourselves,  have  believed  certain  things, 
and  therefore  we  ought  to  believe  them.  But  you 
know  very  well  that  even  wise  men  are  just  as  likely 
to  believe  lies  as  truths.  The  men  who  first  formulated 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  believed  in  astrology,  and 
it's  a  fair  assumption  that  they  were  quite  as  wrong 
in  one  belief  as  the  other.  Besides  which,  there's 
never  been  a  new  truth  given  to  the  world  except  by 
smashing  an  old  truth,  which  men  had  discovered 
to  be  no  truth  at  all.  No,  I  don't  care  a  fig  for  tra- 
dition— it  doesn't  affect  my  mind.  But  there  are 
moments  when  I  sit  alone  at  night,  when  I  steal  out 
from  my  dark  corner  of  the  universe,  and  am  in  a 
world  of  new  dimensions.  I'm  conscious  of  moving 
somehow  on  a  higher  plane  of  being.  Some  phrase  of 
Christ's  flashes  on  the  mind — a  phrase  I  thought 
meaningless,  and  it  breaks  down  all  my  doubt,  and 
compels  my  assent.  It  has  become  true  because  for 
an  instant  I  am  in  the  plane  of  being  where  Christ 
moved.  Do  you  understand?" 

And  to  both  men  there  came   back   the   common 


1 86  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

memory  of  battlefields,  and  the  sense  each  had  had 
many  times  of  something  immortal  in  man. 

In  a  moment  they  had  seen  the  physical  man  dis- 
appear. In  the  same  moment  there  had  come  the 
strong  conviction  that  only  the  physical  had  disap- 
peared. The  conclusion  was  irrational,  yet  inex- 
pugnable. They  felt — that  was  all  that  could  be  said 
— that  all  that  composed  human  personality  had  found 
that  higher  plane  of  being — that  the  body  was  but 
the  blood-stained  uniform  of  the  spirit,  violently  cast 
aside,  but  that  the  spirit  lived. 

"If  the  war  has  done  nothing  else,"  said  Caldwell, 
"it  has  taught  us  all  to  distinguish  between  the  body 
and  the  spirit.  The  essence  of  any  real  religion  lies 
in  that  distinction." 

"Ah,  if  we  could  only  get  the  public  exponents  of 
religion  to  accept  so  simple  a  formula!"  said  Chal- 
mers. 

"Some  do,  and  more  will.  I  see  there's  a  man 
preaching  in  the  Battell  Chapel  to-morrow  who  should 
be  worth  hearing.  He's  a  man  who  has  suffered — 
you've  heard  of  him,  no  doubt — Dr.  Hannington.  All 
his  sons  have  been  in  the  war,  and  all  his  relations  of 
fighting  age.  Shall  we  hear  him?" 

They  went  to  the  Battell  Chapel  next  morning. 
Every  seat  was  filled,  and  on  the  faces  of  the  men 
there  was  an  unusual  look  of  curiosity  and  interest 
Just  before  the  sermon  the  President  rose,  and  made  a 
gesture  which  brought  the  whole  congregation  to  its 
feet. 

"Since   we   last   met,"    he    said    in    a    voice   that 


.YALE  187 

trembled  with  suppressed  emotion,  "two  more  of  our 
number  have  died  in  the  service  of  their  country; 
John  Williams,  and  Edgar  Nelson,  both  serving  in  the 
army  of  occupation,  the  first  as  medical  officer,  the 
second  as  captain  in  the  fifth  regiment  of  the  First 
infantry.  Let  us  commend  their  souls  to  Almighty 
God." 

The  men  stood  silent,  with  bowed  heads.  In  the 
stillness  a  slow  sob  was  heard.  It  came  from  the 
mother  of  Nelson,  who  stood  black-robed  and  motion- 
less in  the  President's  pew. 

"Blessed  are  the  dead,  who  die  in  the  Lord,  for  they 
rest  from  their  labours,  and  their  works  do  follow 
them,"  said  the  President. 

A  long  deep  sigh  filled  the  chapel — thert,  with  a 
shuffling  of  feet,  the  men  sat  down,  and  the  preacher 
stepped  to  the  desk. 

What  Caldwell  had  said  of  Dr.  Hannington  was 
obviously  true;  he  had  suffered.  His  fine  face  was 
deeply-lined,  his  hair,  still  abundant,  quite  white;  but 
his  figure  was  erect,  and  his  voice  firm  and  clear.  He 
spoke  very  simply,  enunciating  very  much  the  same 
view  of  life  and  religion  which  Caldwell  had  ex- 
pressed the  night  before.  The  real  gist  of  his  message 
lay  in  its  conclusion.  He  had  been  speaking  of  man's 
long  dream  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein 
dwell  righteousness.  Only  men  who  had  faith  could 
dream  that  dream,  and  it  was  to  men  of  faith  the 
world  owed  even  any  partial  accomplishment  of  the 
dream.  History  was  the  story  of  how  the  dreamers 
of  humanity  were  justified  by  time.  He  instanced 


;i88  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

Savonarola  and  Wordsworth  as  types  of  men  who 
dreamed  true — they  were  defeated  and  ridiculed,  but 
the  one  knows  how  to  say,  "You  can  kill  me,  but  you 
cannot  kill  the  truth";  and  the  other  to  proclaim  to  his 
distressed  friends,  "Make  your  minds  at  rest  con- 
cerning me:  the  world  must  come  at  last  to  accept 
the  truths  I  teach."  And  then,  as  though  he  had  sud- 
denly become  sensible  of  a  look  of  enquiry  in  that 
throng  of  eager  faces,  he  said,  "I  know  how  disap- 
pointed many  of  you  are.  You  have  had  your  dream 
of  the  heroic,  and  you  would  gladly  have  died  for  it. 
You've  a  greater  thing  to  do — live  for  it.  Hold  fast 
to  your  dream.  Let  it  not  slip  from  you  through 
spiritual  lassitude,  or  be  dimmed  by  fear  or  folly. 
You've  dreamed  of  a  new  earth,  built  on  finer  lines, 
with  more  of  moral  symmetry  and  spiritual  beauty. 
You've  dreamed  true,  and  it's  for  you  to  make  your 
dream  come  true  by  the  dedication  of  your  lives  to  it." 
The  organ  pealed  out  with  the  last  hymn — that  im- 
mortal prayer  of  human  souls  conscious  of  the  gravity 
and  splendour  of  human  life  triumphing  over  its  ap- 
parent triviality — > 

O  God,  bur  help  in  ages  past 
Our  hope  for  years  to  come — 

The  eyes  of  Chalmers  instinctively  sought  the  Presi- 
dent's pew,  and  that  black-robed  mother  for  whom 
life  was  made  empty  of  its  hope  and  purpose.  Would 
she  go  on  dreaming  of  a  new  world?  he  thought 
Could  she  find  the  courage  to  draw  together  again 
life's  broken  purposes,  and  weave  them  anew  into  a 
finer  pattern?  She  had  not  risen  with  the  rest;  she 


YALE  189 

sat  with  bowed  head — type  and  symbol  of  so  many 
soldiers'  mothers,  whose  eyes  are  fixed  upon  the  grave 
where  the  torch  of  a  noble  life  lies  extinguished. 

And  then,  behind  her  bowed  head,  in  the  pew  of 
one  of  the  professors,  his  startled  eyes  became  con- 
scious of  another  woman.  She  was  standing  erect, 
not  joining  in  the  hymn,  her  face  turned  toward  the 
congregation,  her  eyes  lifted  up  to  the  distant  windows 
through  which  the  sunlight  poured.  The  sunlight 
illumined  her  face,  so  that  it  stood  out  distinct  as  a 
cameo  against  the  dark  wainscotted  walls.  She  was 
Claire  Gunnison, 

IV 

She  looked  more  charming  than  ever,  with  her  fair 
skin,  her  enchanting  freshness  of  aspect,  her  grey- 
blue  eyes  uplifted  to  that  sunlit  roof.  There  was  a 
sharp  distinctness  about  her,  which  separated  her  so 
completely  from  the  other  women  who  surrounded 
her  that  she  appeared  a  creature  of  'another  world. 
The  other  women,  the  professors'  wives,  quiet,  mod- 
est, thoughtful  women,  beside  her  seemed  lacking  in 
vitality.  There  was  about  her  a  vividness,  as  of  some 
rich  flower,  which  draws  its  strength  and  colour  from 
deeper  sources  than  its  neighbours. 

Chalmers  was  the  more  keenly  aware  of  this  dis- 
tinction because  ever  since  he  had  come  to  Yale  his 
heart  had  been  lured  by  its  academic  peace.  He  had 
thought  of  it  as  a  place  to  live  in — he  was  under  its 
spell  as  his  uncle  had  been  long  before  him,  when  he 
desired  nothing  better  in  life  than  a  professor's  chair. 


CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

All  at  once,  as  he  looked  at  Claire,  he  became  con- 
scious of  something  attenuated  in  the  Yale  atmos- 
phere. There  was  a  certain  blanched  look  about  its 
inhabitants,  a  cloistral  pallor.  Their  high-minded- 
ness,  their  fineness,  the  contented  simplicity  of  their 
lives,  were  real  qualities,  but  they  were  the  product  of 
a  certain  abnegation.  Claire  Gunnison  was  the  symbol 
of  a  life  richer,  fuller,  freer.  There  was  in  her  a 
music  of  higher  chords,  of  ampler  diapasons.  She 
was  modernity,  she  was  the  flower  of  a  living  day. 
She  was  vital  with  the  life  of  a  new  world. 

As  the  congregation  moved  out  of  the  narrow  doors, 
their  eyes  met.  She  flushed  with  evident  pleasure. 
She  remained  standing  in  the  pew  till  he  came,  and 
greeted  him  without  embarrassment. 

"I  did  not  know  that  you  were  here,"  she  said. 

"Nor  I  you." 

"So  life  has  played  us  a  trick,"  he  said  in  a  low 
voice. 

"I  am  not  complaining,"  she  answered  with  a 
smile. 

Explanations  and  introductions  followed,  of  course. 
It  seemed  Claire  was  spending  the  week  end  with 
Professor  Charteris  and  his  wife.  Mrs.  Charteris  was 
an  eager-looking  woman,  with  fine  eyes  and  fast  grey- 
ing hair,  and  was  a  family  friend  of  the  Gunnisons. 
Claire  had  also  met  young  Nelson,  the  dead  infantry 
officer,  in  Paris,  and  had  brought  certain  messages 
from  him  to  his  mother,  and  desired  to  be  with  her 
during  the  trial  of  the  Yale  service. 

As  they  walked  up  Hillside  Avenue  to  Professor 


YALE  191 

Charteris'  house  Claire  spoke  yery  tenderly  of  the 
dead  boy  and  his  mother. 

"He  wasn't  a  very  strong  man,  physically  I  mean, 
but  he  had  an  amazing  spirit.  He  was  wounded  at  the 
Argonne  with  a  splinter  of  shrapnel  in  his  head,  and 
that's  how  I  came  to  meet  him.  He  came  to  the  hos- 
pital where  I  was,  and  he  and  I  were  great  friends. 
He  loved  to  talk  of  his  mother — he  was  an  only  son 
— and  he  wanted  to  come  home,  O  so  much,  and 
didn't  at  all  fancy  being  used  in  an  army  of  occu- 
pation. But  he  went  back  to  his  duty,  of  course,  with- 
out complaint,  although  with  a  sense  of  sad  presenti- 
ment. It  was  on  the  last  night,  before  he  went  back, 
that  he  asked  me  if  anything  happened  to  him,  to  tell 
his  mother  that  if  he  didn't  come  back  she  mustn't 
grieve  for  him.  'If  I  had  to  live  my  life  again/  he 
said,  'I  should  live  it  in  just  the  same  way.  There's 
nothing  I  would  alter,  and  very  little  that  I  regret/ 
I  was  rather  astonished  at  such  a  speech  on  the  lips 
of  a  boy — for  he  was  only  twenty-three;  it  sank  into 
my  mind,  as  the  final  expression  of  all  philosophic 
serenity." 

"You  never  told  me  that  you  nursed  in  the  hos- 
pitals, Claire." 

"Didn't  I?  Well,  I  supposed  you  took  it  for 
granted." 

They  came  to  the  home  of  Professor  Charteris. 
It  was  a  large,  solidly  built  house,  standing  in  green 
lawns,  shaded  by  fine  trees.  Charteris  was  one  of  the 
few  professors  who  was  wealthy.  He  had  inherited 
the  house  from  his  father. 


192  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"You'll  stay  to  lunch,"  said  Mrs.  Charteris. 

"I  think  Major  Caldwell  is  expecting  me." 

"But  we  will  ring  up  Caldwell — we  shall  be  de- 
lighted to  have  him,  too." 

"I  think  that  he  is  coming  up  the  road  now." 

"Then  that  settles  it,"  she  said  brightly.  "I  will 
wait  for  him  and  cajole  him  out  of  his  fear  of  his 
housekeeper,  who,  I  understand,  is  a  very  formidable 
old  lady." 

They  sat  down  to  lunch  in  the  large  dining-room 
which  ran  across  the  entire  breadth  of  the  house,  with 
its  three  tall  windows  opening  on  the  green  lawns. 
The  Professor,  an  alert  white-haired  man,  many 
years  older  than  his  wife,  took  the  head  of  the  table. 
Mrs.  Nelson,  sombre  and  silent,  sat  upon  his  right, 
and  Claire,  with  her  vivid  beauty,  on  his  left. 

The  conversation  was  studiously  confined  to  college 
matters  out  of  consideration  to  Mrs.  Nelson,  until 
Caldwell  happened  to  mention  the  name  of  Treitschke. 

"Ah,  a  very  remarkable  man,"  said  Charteris.  "I 
studied  under  him.  Let  me  see,  it  must  be  more  than 
thirty  years  ago.  All  that  Germany  has  since  been 
and  done  had  its  origin  in  his  teachings." 

"Most  of  us  have  only  just  discovered  him,"  said 
Caldwell. 

"That  is  our  own  fault.  He  spoke  plainly  enough. 
It  was  he  who  said  of  the  Cameroons,  'What  do  we 
want  with  that  box  of  sand?  Let  us  take  Holland. 
We  shall  then  have  real  Colonies.'  He  never  con- 
cealed his  complete  contempt  for  anything  but  force. 
If  you  would  like  to  see  them,  I  still  have  my  old 


YALE  193 

note-books,  in  which  I  took  down  his  teachings  in  his 
own  classrooms." 

He  left  the  table  and  came  back  in  a  few  minutes 
with  a  handful  of  dingy  note-books. 

"I  am  a  very  methodical  man,"  he  said  with  a 
whimsical  smile.  "I  have  kept  every  paper  I  thought 
worth  while  keeping  ever  since  I  was  a  boy,  and 
what's  more,  I  can  put  my  hand  on  it  at  a  moment's 
notice." 

He  opened  the  faded  pages,  and  began  rapidly 
translating  their  records.  The  passage  he  hit  upon 
was  a  dissertation  on  honour,  which  Treitschke  ad- 
mitted might  have  some  sanction  as  between  indi- 
viduals, but  none  whatever  between  nations.  The 
State  was  beyond  good  or  evil.  It  was  the  supreme 
authority  for  all  law,  and  therefore  a  law  to  itself.  If 
France  or  Holland  were  necessary  to  the  well-being 
of  Germany,  Germany  had  a  perfect  right  to  seize 
them.  Power  to  act  was  the  only  guide  to  action. 
The  limit  of  strength  was  the  only  limit  to  action. 

"It  sounds  like  the  reasoning  of  a  madman,"  said 
Caldwell. 

"I  would  not  say  that,"  Charteris  retorted.  "The 
reasoning  is  perfectly  lucid,  luminous,  sustained.  Thq 
fault  is  not  in  the  reasoning,  but  that  it  rests  upon 
an  absolutely  un-moral  basis." 

"How  did  it  affect  you,  when  you  heard  it?" 

"I  didn't  think  much  about  it.  I  was  too  young. 
I  found  it  novel  and  stimulating.  I  was  at  the  age 
when  it  appears  the  most  delightful  thing  in  the  world 
to  fling  all  one's  preconceived  ideals  of  morals  into 


CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

the  crucible,  and  see  what  comes  of  the  experiment." 

"Isn't  that  what  we  are  doing  now?"  said  Claire. 

She  had  listened  with  the  keenest  attention  to 
Treitschke's  opinions. 

"I  hope  not,"  said  Charteris  gravely,  "for  it  is  a 
very  dangerous  experiment." 

"But  what  I  mean  is  this.  Doesn't  mankind  ac- 
cumulate such  a  tremendous  impedimenta  of  obsolete 
opinions  in  course  of  time  that  it  can't  get  forward  at 
all?  Must  it  not  throw  away  a  good  deal  of  baggage 
before  it  can  march  to  any  new  kingdom?" 

"It  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  baggage,  my  dear 
young  lady.  Treitschke  considered  a  large  part  of  the 
Ten  Commandments  baggage.  His  followers  soon 
came  to  think  of  Christianity  in  the  same  way.  They 
considered  it  a  religion  for  slaves,  and  dropped  it  as 
useless  impedimenta  to  a  warlike  nation  with  the  will 
to  conquest.  The  result  we  see." 

"Nevertheless,  the  world  must  yield  to  new  streams 
of  tendency  if  it  is  ever,  to  arrive  at  anything  new, 
mustn't  it?" 

"According  to  my  view  of  the  universe  there  are 
only  two  permanent  streams  of  tendency:  one  is  the 
struggle  for  the  individual  life,  the  other  the  struggle 
for  the  lives  of  others.  The  one  means  seizing  on 
everything  for  one's  self,  the  other  yielding  every- 
thing for  others." 

"Not  everything,  Professor,  surely  not  every- 
thing!" 

"Everything  that  is  of  personal  advantage  and 
nothing  else — that  is  what  I  mean." 


YALE  195 

"I'm  afraid  it's  very  hard  to  draw  the  line,  isn't 
it?" 

"No;  on  the  contrary,  I  think  it  very  simple.  Let 
any  one  ask  of  any  action  he  proposes,  'Is  it  my 
own  benefit  alone  which  I  am  seeking?'  If  it  is,  he 
may  be  quite  sure  that  in  the  long  run  he  will  find 
that  he  is  acting  wrongly.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
finds  that  the  action  he  proposes  is  much  more  for 
the  benefit  of  others  than  himself,  he  may  be  sure 
that  in  the  long  run  he  will  find  that  he  has  acted 
rightly.  Our  safety  lies  in  checkmating  our  own 
selfish  desires;  our  destruction  in  yielding  to  them. 
If  Germany  had  acted  on  the  latter  principle  there 
would  have  been  no  war." 

"But  our  desires  are  not  always  selfish.  They  may 
be  intuitions  which  indicate  a  wider  light,  a  truer  free- 
dom. How  are  we  to  distinguish?" 

"Only  by  the  test  I  have  proposed.  Is  the  benefit 
we  seek  a  personal  benefit,  or  is  it  a  benefit  for  hu- 
manity? Where  Germany  was  wrong  was  that  what 
she  sought  was  a  benefit  to  Germany  and  no  one  else ; 
the  idea  of  benefit  to  humanity  never  appealed  to  her. 
And  the  same  thing  holds  good  in  many  other  direc- 
tions. We  are  all  tempted  to  seize  on  personal  bene- 
fit, to  act  for  ourselves  in  contempt  of  the  general 
good.  In  the  long  run  I  think  we  find  that  any  action 
of  ours  which  is  not  for  the  general  good  is  bad  for 
ourselves." 

"I  think  I  see  what  you  mean,  but  I'm  not  sure  I 
agree,"  said  Claire. 

Chalmers  knew  very  well  of  what  she  was  thinking. 


'196  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

There  came  back  to  him  vividly  those  long  conversa- 
tions on  ship-board,  with  Claire's  reiterated  assertion 
of  her  right  to  rule  her  own  life  after  her  own  fashion. 
What  he  had  wondered  at  when  she  uttered  these 
views  was  that  she  did  not  see  the  implications  of  her 
thought.  And  he  wondered  now  whether  the  quiet 
searching  words  of  Charteris  would  make  these  impli- 
cations clear  to  her. 

"Aren't  we  getting  a  little  too  deep?'7  interposed 
the  brisk  voice  of  Mrs.  Charteris.  "Suppose  we  have 
our  coffee  on  the  lawn — it's  too  beautiful  a  day  to 
spend  indoors  in  philosophic  discussion." 

"I'm  sorry  I've  bored  you,"  said  Charteris,  gather- 
ing up  his  note-books. 

"But  you  haven't  bored  us,"  said  Claire.  "You've 
given  me  a  good  deal  to  think  of,  for  which  I  am 
grateful." 

"It's  very  charming  of  you  to  say  that,"  he  replied, 
with  an  ironic  bow.  "I  don't  often  find  a  new  mind 
on  which  to  inflict  my  views — it's  a  temptation  to 
make  the  most  of  the  opportunity — and  you  know  a 
prophet  is  not  without  honour  save  in  his  own 
country." 


They  sat  a  long  time  under  the  shade  of  a  great 
elm,  enjoying  the  afternoon  warmth  and  tranquillity. 
There  was  a  wonderful  peace  in  the  air.  The  place 
was  so  enclosed  with  greenery  that  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  city  was  forgotten.  A  soft  bell  called  through 
the  stillness  and  was  answered  by  a  yet  more  remote 


YALE  197 

bell;  far  away  there  was  the  dull  reverberation  of  a 
rushing  train;  overhead  the  wind  went  in  the  tops 
of  the  trees,  like  the  long  sigh  of  a  happy  sleeper. 

Conversation  became  fragmentary.  It  arose  and 
died  down  again  in  little  jets  and  springs  of  local 
gossip,  personal  allusions,  pleasant  anecdotes.  Claire 
listened,  with  a  thoughtful  look  upon  her  face,  saying 
nothing.  About  three  o'clock  she  rose,  saying  that 
she  must  get  ready  for  the  train. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  leaving  so  soon,"  said 
Chalmers. 

"I  am  going  on  the  four  train,"  she  replied. 

"Will  you  let  me  come  to  the  station?" 

"I  shall  be  delighted." 

At  half-past  three  a  Yale  taxi,  smallest  of  all  taxis 
known  to  man,  was  at  the  door.  They  got  into  it. 
As  it  moved  away  Claire  said,  as  if  taking  up  some 
argument  which  had  gone  on  in  her  own  mind,  "No, 
it  won't  do." 

"What  won't  do,  Claire?" 

"The  argument  of  Professor  Charteris.  It  makes 
the  world  too  tame.  But  then,  Yale  is  tame,  isn't 
it?" 

"It's  peaceful.  Ever  since  I've  been  here,  I've  been 
thinking  how  good  a  place  it  would  be  to  live  in." 

"I  know  you  have.  I  watched  your  face  as  you 
sat  on  the  lawn,  and  I  could  read  your  thoughts.  All 
college  towns  affect  one  in  that  way.  Oxford  is  the 
best  example.  It's  like  those  lovely  Thames  back- 
waters into  which  a  man  drifts  with  a  pipe  and  a  book, 
and  is  content  to  dream  through  a  long  day." 


198  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Yet  it's  from  such  places  that  the  great  heroes  of 
the  war  have  come." 

"Precisely — they've  come  from  them.  They  didn't 
stay  in  them.  Had  they  stayed  in  them  they  would 
have  fallen  asleep.  Yale's  a  phase  in  the  long  se- 
quence of  life.  You  can't  return  to  it." 

"What  attracts  me  in  Yale  is  the  spirit  of  idealism. 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  places  like  Yale  are  the  only 
places  where  idealism  is  vital." 

"O  no,"  she  said  earnestly,  "I  am  sure  that  is  not 
true.  The  true  idealists  are  in  cities.  Idealism  in 
Yale  is  a  sort  of  vestal  fire,  carefully  guarded  and 
tended.  Idealism  in  cities  is  a  torch,  struggling  in 
fierce  winds,  and  therefore  burning  with  extraordi- 
nary vehemence.  Idealism  needs  opposition  to  de- 
velop it." 

"And  so  you  think  I  couldn't  live  in  Yale?"  he  said 
with  a  smile. 

"I  know  you  couldn't,  my  friend.  You've  moved 
in  a  big  world  of  action.  You  can't  crawl  back  into 
your  cradle  after  that.  There's  only  one  excuse  for  a 
man  of  action  entering  the  cloister — it's  a  broken 
heart." 

"Well,"  he  said,  doubtfully —  And  then  in  a  sud- 
den rush  of  feeling  he  told  her  the  hidden  things  of 
his  heart.  He  did  not  mention  the  name  of  Mary 
Challoner.  He  said  nothing  of  his  disappointed  hopes. 
But,  unknown  to  himself,  while  he  drew  a  picture  of 
Melrose,  with  its  spiritual  deadness,  its  complacency, 
its  hopeless  alienation  from  the  thoughts  that  were  to 
him  most  vital,  through  the  picture,  like  another 


YALE  J99 

painted  beneath  it,  was  the  figure  of  a  woman  who 
had  contemned  him.  There  ran  through  his  hurried 
speech  a  poignant  personal  note,  of  which  he  was 
not  aware.  But  the  quick  ear  of  Claire  recognised  it 

"So  you  are  in  trouble,  my  friend,"  she  said  quietly. 
"Do  you  remember  that  I  told  you  that  if  ever  you 
were  in  trouble  you  would  find  in  me  a  true  friend?" 

"I  was  coming  to  you,  Claire.  It  seems  you've 
come  to  me  instead." 

"No,  we've  simply  met  because  we  had  to.  If  we 
had  each  started  at  the  furthest  corner  of  the  world, 
we  should  still  have  met,  because  it  was  so  written." 

"That's  fatalism." 

"I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I  know  it's  life.  We 
set  out  to  do  one  thing  and  find  ourselves  doing  some- 
thing quite  different.  It's  like  that  curious  illusion 
one  has  sometimes  in  a  fast  train — you  think  it's 
travelling  in  one  direction  when  it's  really  moving  in 
a  direction  totally  opposite." 

"In  what  direction  are  you  travelling,  Claire?" 

"Who  knows?  Least  of  all,  myself.  But  I  am  glad 
my  line  of  life  has  crossed  yours  again.  Are  you  a 
little  glad,  too?" 

"Yes,  I'm  glad,"  he  said  simply. 

He  laid  his  hand  on  hers.  He  thrilled  a  little  to 
find  that  her  hand  was  not  withdrawn. 

The  taxi  drew  up  at  the  deplorable  shanty  which 
serves  New  Haven  as  a  temporary  station. 

"May  I  come  and  see  you  in  New  York?"  he 
asked. 


200  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"I  hope  you  will.  Indeed,  I'll  be  perfectly  frank, 
I've  been  expecting  that  you  would." 

"I  wonder  why  you're  so  good  to  me,  Claire?" 

"A  fellow  feeling,  I  suspect.  We've  both  got  astray 
from  beaten  paths,  haven't  we?  We  find  we  don't 
fit  into  the  scheme  of  things.  We  feel  lost,  don't  we? 
Under  the  circumstances  there  seems  to  be  a  kind  of 
wisdom  in  not  adding  to  our  misfortunes  by  losing 
each  other." 

The  words  had  an  implication  which  cut  like  a  sharp 
edge  through  a  velvet  shield.  Had  he  not  wished 
to  lose  her?  Had  he  not,  in  his  secret  thoughts,  rather 
congratulated  himself  on  losing  her?  That  midnight 
scene  on  the  ship  came  back  to  him  vividly.  She  had 
told  him  that  she  was  a  woman  who  gave,  but  did  not 
bargain;  was  not  that  the  key  to  her  whole  nature? 
He  recognised  her  magnanimity.  Those  errors  of 
thought  in  her  which  he  had  so  severely  criticised 
were  as  nothing  compared  with  this  essential  mag- 
nanimity. They  were,  at  the  worst,  misapplied  mag- 
nanimity. 

"You  are  much  too  generous  to  me,"  he  said 
humbly. 

"Don't  be  so  sure  of  that,"  she  replied,  with  a  little 
soft  peal  of  laughter.  He  had  never  noticed  before 
the  quality  of  her  laughter.  Most  people  cackle,  they 
don't  laugh.  Claire's  laughter  was  a  carillon  of  notes 
sweet  as  those  of  a  thrush;  a  little  scale,  up  which  the 
voice  ran,  with  each  note  clearly  rounded. 

"Don't  be  too  sure,"  she  repeated.  "A  woman's 
generosity  should  be  suspected.  She  usually  wants 


YALE  201 

to  get  as  much  as  she  gives — sometimes  a  good  deal 
more." 

Her  laughter  ceased.  There  was  a  suspicion  of 
tears  in  her  eyes. 

"We're  getting  too  introspective,"  she  said.  "Why 
can't  we  simply  follow  our  feelings  without  analysing 
them?  Let  us  take  the  gifts  the  Gods  provide.  Isn't 
that  the  highest  human  wisdom?" 

"Which  means?"— 

"O  just  that  we  should  be  glad  we've  found  one 
another  again.  We  needn't  go  beyond  that.  If  we 
can  help  each  other  to  smooth  out  this  tangle  of  life, 
let  us  do  it,  and  ask  no  questions.  The  things  of  to- 
morrow will  take  care  of  themselves." 

The  distant  whistle  of  the  train  was  heard.  The 
crowd  of  travellers  was  moving  out  of  the  dingy 
wooden  hall  to  the  dingier  platform. 

"I  must  go,"  she  said.  "You  know  my  address. 
When  shall  I  see  you?" 

"I  shall  be  in  New  York  to-morrow.  May  I  call 
in  the  afternoon?" 

"I  shall  expect  you.  I  think  I  told  you  I  was  stay- 
ing with  relatives.  I  am  staying  with  my  Aunt  Gun- 
nison,  who,  I  may  warn  you,  is  a  most  respectable 
widow  of  blue  Presbyterian  ancestry,  and  strict  re- 
ligious opinions.  She  also  has  a  rooted  conviction 
that  all  young  men  are  dangerous,  particularly  army 
officers!" 

"If  she  can  put  up  with  your  heresies  I'm  sure  she 
can  with  mine,"  he  retorted. 

They  parted  with  smiles.     The  long  train  glided 


203  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

slowly  out,  leaving  behind  it  that  curious  sense  of 
emptiness  and  desertion  which  is  never  so  apparent 
as  in  a  railway  station,  when  a  freight  of  human 
hopes  and  purposes  has  vanished,  leaving  only 
straggling  groups  of  depressed  people,  who  look  as  if 
life  had  denied  them  all  adventure. 

Chalmers  walked  back  slowly  to  Caldwell's  house, 
conscious  only  of  a  secret  voice  in  his  heart  which 
said — "To-morrow,  To-morrow." 


VI 

He  went  to  bed  early  that  night,  less  because  he  was 
tired  than  that  he  desired  to  be  alone.  He  wished  to 
think  out  his  relations  with  Claire.  She  had  asked 
nothing  more  from  him  than  friendship,  but  wap 
mere  friendship  possible  between  them  ?  Was  it  ever 
possible  between  men  and  women  in  whom  the  pulse 
of  life  beat  strongly?  Nature  was  very  sly  in  these 
things.  She  masked  her  intentions.  Her  intentions 
never  stopped  at  friendship.  She  waited  stealthily  for 
the  moment  when  a  word  too  much,  a  glance  too 
ardent,  a  lingering  touch  of  clasped  hands  precipitated 
love.  Was  he  prepared  for  that  foreseen  moment? 
Was  not  Claire  secretly  aware  that  it  must  come? 

She  was  no  coquette.  No  woman  was  freer  from 
the  conscious  guile  which  ensnares  men.  But  she  was 
not  ignorant  of  her  own  charm.  She  had  already 
revealed  her  love,  and  was  wise  enough  to  know  that 
such  a  friendship  as  she  proposed  must,  in  the  long 
run,  mean  love.  If  he  accepted  her  friendship  was 


YALE  203 

he  prepared  to  follow  the  path  on  which  he  entered 
to  its  logical  conclusion? 

He  wearied  his  mind  with  this  inward  debate,  go- 
ing over  again  and  again  all  the  arguments  with  dull 
reiteration,  as  one  does  in  the  moments  that  precede 
sleep.  At  last  the  speed  of  thought  began  to  slacken, 
like  the  wheels  of  a  factory  that  slowly  cease  to  re- 
volve. The  intense  quietness  of  the  room  began  to 
affect  him  like  a  narcotic.  There  came  a  little  rippling 
wave  of  restfulness  that  ran  across  his  mind,  and  was 
followed  by  another  and  another.  He  roused  himself 
to  pull  the  chain  of  the  electric  light  beside  his  bed, 
and  fell  asleep. 

At  midnight  he  was  roused  by  the  opening  of  his 
bedroom  door.  He  knew  that  it  was  midnight,  be- 
cause he  heard  the  solemn  striking  of  the  clocks  in 
the  city  through  the  stillness  of  the  night.  The  door 
slowly  swung  back,  a  gust  of  cold  air  blew  across  his 
face,  and  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  someone  in  the 
room.  No  one  was  visible.  The  window  curtains 
bulged  gently  in  the  draught  which  had  been  created. 
In  the  dim  light  all  the  objects  in  the  room  were 
vaguely  visible.  A  faint  sound,  like  a  human  sigh, 
trembled  on  the  air.  Then  the  door  of  the  room 
closed  again,  not  with  a  crash  as  might  have  been 
expected  from  the  strong  draught  that  was  blowing, 
but  quite  softly,  as  if  under  the  restraint  of  human 
hands.  If  a  visitor  had  indeed  entered  the  room,  he 
had  left  again  as  silently  as  he  came. 

After  that,  sleep  was  impossible.  His  nerves 
tingled,  and  his  thoughts  began  to  thrash  to  and  fro 


204  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

in  his  brain,  like  wild  creatures  beating  against  the 
bars  of  a  cage. 

The  days  spent  in  Melrose  were  relived ;  each  petty 
vexation  was  re-enacted.  He  saw  very  distinctly  his 
uncle's  face,  with  the  heavy  pouches  under  the  tired 
eyes,  and  heard  his  voice  repeating  the  last  words  he 
had  spoken  to  him — "I  am  growing  old,  John, — I've 
not  got  out  of  life  what  I  hoped  for.  There's  a  kind 
of  emptiness  in  it  all."  A  melancholy  confession  from 
one  who  was  accounted  a  successful  man. 

What  had  made  his  uncle's  life  seem  empty  in  spite 
of  all  its  apparent  success?  Wasn't  it  that  he  had 
missed  his  way,  had  refused  the  path  of  idealism? 
For  every  man  there  was  some  one  thing  he  wanted 
to  do  more  than  any  other;  if  that  was  not  accom- 
plished, life  was  empty.  Wasn't  the  whole  secret  of 
human  happiness  the  dedication  to  impersonal  aims 
— the  secret  of  human  misery  the  expenditure  of  all 
the  powers  of  life  on  aims  which  had  their  end  in 
self  ?  The  war  had  revealed  that  truth  to  millions  of 
men,  but  his  uncle  was  not  among  them.  While  these 
millions  were  flung  forth  into  great  adventures,  his 
uncle's  life  had  done  nothing  more  than  continue  to 
revolve  on  the  pivot  of  contented  egoism. 

From  that  he  went  on  to  think  of  the  effects  of  the 
war  upon  the  great  masses  of  men.  What  had  the 
war  done  for  the  world  after  all?  It  had  defeated  the 
diabolic  designs  of  Germany,  but  that  was  a  negative 
result.  To  crush  an  evil  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to 
create  a  good.  Had  the  war  given  birth  to  any  dis- 
tinctly new  conceptions  of  life?  Was  there  any  sign 


YALE  205 

that  it  had  set  in  motion  processes  which  would  bring 
about  any  authentic  transformation  of  society? 

It  was  undoubtedly  a  great  gain  that  multitudes 
of  men  had  proved  themselves  capable  of  responding 
to  high  ideals  of  liberty  and  justice;  but  now  that  the 
fierce  wind  of  war  had  ceased  to  blow  would  not  this 
divine  fire  sink  down  again,  and  be  smothered  in  the 
aims  of  materialism  ?  Quite  visibly  America  was  fast 
slipping  back  into  old  modes  of  thought  and  life.  The 
same  thing  was  true  of  Britain  and  France,  though 
the  process  was  less  rapid  with  them,  because  the 
agony  had  been  more  intense  and  the  sacrifice  more 
stupendous.  Did  not  the  entire  history  of  the  past 
prove  that  mankind  could  not  maintain  itself  for  long 
at  a  great  height  of  idealism,  that  periods  of  supreme 
exertion  were  followed  by  periods  of  stagnation,  that 
after  these  hours  of  supreme  passion  the  verdict  was 
usually  that  of  Browning's  hunted  patriot, 

So  with  a  sullen  "All's  for  best" 
The  lan&  seemed  sinking  into  rest. 

Of  course,  there  was  Bolshevism,  but  that  was  a 
purely  iconoclastic  force,  with  no  element  of  genuine 
social  reconstruction  in  it.  A  Bolshevist  world,  if  it 
could  be  imagined,  would  be  a  world  from  which  all 
the  higher  lights  had  disappeared.  It  would  be  a 
world  where  the  hunger  of  the  belly  was  the  one  in- 
centive to  live,  displacing  the -nobler  hungers  of  the 
spirit.  Mankind  would  never  tolerate  such  a  world. 
Rather  than  tolerate  it  every  civilised  nation  would 
arm  itself  afresh  to  crush  it,  for  its  threat  to  human 


206  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

/ 

happiness  and  progress  was  much  more  menacing 
than  German  Kultur  had  ever  been. 

And  there  was  Foley's  dream  of  a  Republic  of  Sol- 
diers; but  was  it  not  equally  impracticable?  No  doubt 
it  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  the  world  could  rid  itself 
of  the  politicians.  In  every  country  they  had  shown 
themselves  incapable  of  governing.  They  had  been 
pushed  on  by  public  opinion,  they  had  never  led  it 
Many  of  them  had  made  the  war  a  fine  opportunity 
for  self -advancement.  They  had  been  frantically  en- 
gaged in  scrambling  for  office  while  their  fellows  were 
dying.  They  were  not  likely  to  abdicate  in  favour  of 
soldiers;  and  they  were  too  strongly  entrenched  be- 
hind a  suppliant  press,  too  well  armed  with  all  the 
means  for  corruption  by  which  power  is  served,  to  be 
dislodged. 

Surely,  if  anything  affirmed  the  manifest  condem- 
nation of  the  politicians,  it  was  their  behaviour  at  the 
Peace  Conference.  What  ideas  had  they  brought  with 
them  but  the  ancient  idea  of  bargaining,  with  the 
cunning  and  the  strategy  of  horse-dealers  at  a  county 
fair,  each  to  get  his  own  end  ?  The  soldiers,  who  had 
won  the  war,  had  had  little  to  say.  They  had  been 
overruled  by  the  bargainers,  who  could  see  no  duty 
beyond  that  of  inflicting  indemnities,  partitioning 
Colonies,  and  drawing  up  paper  demarcations  between 
jealous  countries.  It  hardly  seemed  worth  while  to 
have  sacrificed  millions  of  human  lives  for  this  result 

The  League  of  Nations? — Yes,  that  ideal  had  been 
born  at  the  Peace  Conference,  no  doubt,  and  it  was  a 
noble  ideal.  But  it  was  not  new.  It  was  as  old  as  the 


YALE  207 

Roman  Empire.  Its  very  constitution  might  be  found 
in  documents  drawn  up  centuries  ago.  It  was  so 
plain  a  short-cut  to  human  happiness,  that  one  asked 
why  it  had  not  been  taken  long  ago?  And  the  answer 
was  obvious;  it  had  never  had  behind  it  the  real  con- 
sent of  mankind.  Before  a  real  League  of  peace  was 
possible  there  must  be  a  change  of  heart  in  mankind. 
Until  then,  it  was  nothing  better  than  a  paper  league, 
which  would  be  torn  up  the  moment  men  were  dis- 
appointed in  its  results,  tired  of  its  tyranny,  or  strong 
enough  to  defy  it. 

"No,  no,"  he  said  to  himself,  "here's  the  truth  as 
I  see  it.  We  want  a  new  faith  to  inspire  mankind  and 
we  haven't  got  it.  All  things  are  possible  to  him  that 
believeth — but  we  don't  believe.  We  want  a  new 
Mahomet — a  Paul — some  flaming  leader — a  man  who 
can  create  belief  because  he  believes.  We've  come  to 
our  new  day,  and  we  haven't  any  new  creed  that  fits 
its  opportunities." 

He  wished  Caldwell  was  awake — he  would  have 
liked  to  pour  out  all  his  troubled  thoughts  to  him.  But 
the  house  was  deeply  quiet;  the  only  sound  was  the 
faint  stirring  of  the  breeze  in  the  leaves  of  the  elm 
outside  the  open  window.  He  rose,  and  looked  out 
on  the  empty  street.  The  first  pallor  of  dawn  was  in 
the  sky.  High  in  the  zenith  there  spread  a  slow  effu- 
sion of  rosy  colour.  His  mind  grew  calmer  as  he 
watched  that  immemorial  spectacle.  From  its  unhur- 
ried progress  he  drew  a  parable  of  comfort.  Was 
he  not  too  hasty  in  expecting  vast  changes  in  man- 


208  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

kind?  Or,  again,  might  not  such  changes  be  nearer 
than  he  knew? 

Beside  the  window  was  a  bookcase.  He  drew  from 
it  a  book  at  random.  It  was  a  collection  of  letters 
written  by  Wendell  Phillips.  His  eye  fell  on  one 
written  in  1854,  in  which  Phillips  said,  "The  govern- 
ment has  fallen  completely  into  the  hands  of  the  slave 
power.  We  are  beaten.  There's  no  hope.  The  future 
seems  to  unfold  a  vast  slave-empire,  united  with  Bra- 
zil and  darkening  the  whole  west.  I  hope  I  may  be  a 
false  prophet,  but  the  sky  was  never  so  dark." 

And  seven  years  later  came  the  Civil  War,  and  with 
it  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  night  which  he 
thought  eternal  ended  suddenly,  and  a  new  day  of 
liberty  came  with  healing  in  its  wings  for  the  enslaved. 

The  letter  was  a  striking  instance  of  the  futility  of 
prophecy.  Might  not  he  be  just  as  wrong  in  his  read- 
ing of  the  signs  of  the  times?  Might  not  the  new 
Mahomet,  the  new  Paul,  be  already  on  his  way,  with 
the  world's  new  dawn  of  faith  marching  at  his  back? 

A  telegraph  boy,  on  a  bicycle,  was  riding  slowly 
up  the  street,  scanning  the  houses.  He  stopped  at  the 
gate  of  Caldwell's  home.  Chalmers  went  down  stairs 
softly,  and  opened  the  door  to  him. 

"It's  for  Captain  Chalmers,"  he  said. 

Chalmers  opened  it.  It  read :  "My  father  died  sud- 
denly this  evening.  Come  at  once." 

The  boy  took  his  receipt  for  the  telegram,  and  went 
off  down  the  road,  whistling  vigorously  "Over  There." 

"Ah,  so  it  was  he  who  came  to  me  in  the  night," 
thought  Chalmers. 


YALE  209 

He  went  back  to  his  room,  entering  it  with  a  thrill 
of  awe.  On  his  way  to  God  the  spirit  of  Hugh  Chal- 
loner  had  stopped  there  for  an  instant. 

He  packed  his  bag  in  haste,  roused  Baldy  and  left 
with  him  a  message  for  Caldwell.  The  dawn  was 
still  young  when  he  got  into  the  train  for  Melrose, 


CHAPTER  VII 
REQUIESCAT 


HUGH  CHALLONER  had  died  in  his  sleep.  He  had 
played  golf  on  Sunday  morning.  In  the  afternoon  he 
had  gone  a  short  motor  ride  with  Mary,  leaving  her  at 
the  Smithsons'  for  dinner.  He  had  come  back  about 
six  o'clock,  dined  alone,  and  spent  the  rest  of  the 
evening  in  his  library,  busying  himself  over  papers  and 
documents  relating  to  his  private  affairs.  About 
eleven  o'clock  he  had  gone  to  his  room,  and  was  not 
seen  alive  again.  His  valet  was  the  last  person  who 
saw  him.  It  was  Challoner's  practice  to  read  himself 
to  sleep;  but  on  this  night  he  said  to  the  valet,  "You 
may  turn  the  lights  out,  Charles.  I'm  tired — I  sup- 
pose it's  the  golf — I  think  I  shall  sleep  well  to-night." 
An  hour  later  the  man  remembered  that  he  had  not 
put  beside  his  master's  bed  a  sleeping  mixture  which 
he  sometimes  took.  He  stole  into  the  room  on  tiptoe 
to  repair  the  omission.  The  intense  silence  of  the 
room  struck  him  as  strange.  Standing  beside  the  bed, 
he  could  hear  no  sound  of  breathing.  He  switched 
on  the  little  shaded  lamp  that  was  on  the  table  at  the 
side  of  the  bed.  One  glance  at  the  quiet  face  upon  the 

210 


REQUIESCAT  air 

white  pillow  revealed  the  tragic  truth  that  Challoner 
was  dead.  The  hour  was  a  few  minutes  after  mid- 
night. The  valet  was  quite  sure  of  the  time,  for  he 
remembered  that  he  had  heard  the  stable  clock  strike 
twelve  as  he  went  up  the  stairs  to  his  master's  room. 

Such  was  the  story  that  Chalmers  heard  on  his 
arrival  at  Melrose. 

Smithson  met  him  at  the  station.  He  was  so  full 
of  genuine  kindness  and  consideration  that  Chalmers 
felt  a  qualm  of  compunction  for  the  low  estimate  he 
had  formed  of  him. 

"I  had  a  great  respect  for  your  uncle,"  he  said. 
"We  all  looked  up  to  him."  His  voice  broke  and 
there  were  tears  in  his  eyes. 

"I  knew  he  hadn't  been  well  for  a  long  time,"  he 
continued.  "But  he  never  complained.  He  wasn't 
that  sort  of  man.  He  was  thorough-bred,  you  know 
— the  kind  that  runs  till  it  drops.  The  doctors  say 
it  was  heart  failure." 

"How's  Mary?"  asked  Chalmers. 

"She  takes  it  very  hard,  very  hard.  She  blames  her- 
self that  she  wasn't  with  him  when  he  died.  I  tell 
her  that  no  one  could  have  foreseen  what  was  going 
to  happen.  I'm  not  a  great  hand  at  religion,  but  I 
kind  of  believe  that  dead  people  aren't  so  far  away 
but  they  know  what  happens  after  they've  gone,  and 
make  allowances.  You  see,  I've  something  of  the 
same  kind  on  my  own  conscience.  When  my  father 
was  ill  they  wired  me  to  come  home;  but  I  had  some 
business  I  wanted  to  finish  and  didn't  go  for  two  days, 
and  then  it  was  too  late.  I'm  afraid  we're  all  selfish 


212 

beasts  to  our  parents,  without  knowing  it.  But  I'm 
certain  my  father  didn't  blame  me  half  as  much  as  I 
blamed  myself.  I  guess  he  understood  somehow,  and 
was  sorrier  for  me  than  he  was  for  himself.  I  told 
Mary  that;  I  thought  it  might  help  her." 

"No,"  thought  Chalmers,  "you  can't  apologise  to 
the  dead,  nor  can  you  atone  to  them  for  stinted  affec- 
tions, unjust  judgments,  the  selfish  repudiation  of 
their  claims  which  we  made  in  mere  gaiety  and  light- 
heart  edness." 

His  own  conscience  was  not  quite  easy  when  he 
thought  of  his  uncle.  Is  the  conscience  of  the  most 
unselfish  lover  quite  at  ease  when  he  contrasts  the 
might-have-been,  now  impossible,  with  that  which  is? 

"Your  uncle  was  very  fond  of  you,"  continued 
Smithson.  "He  was  thinking  of  you  just  before  he 
died." 

"Was  he?    How  do  you  know  that?" 

"Well,  there  was  a  letter  on  his  desk  addressed  to 
you.  He  must  have  been  writing  it  on  Sunday  even- 
ing. I  thought  you  would  like  to  have  it,  so  I  brought 
it  with  me.  I  suppose  I'd  no  right  to  touch  it,  but  I 
had  an  idea  that  someone  else  might  get  hold  of  it 
— your  uncle's  lawyer,  for  instance,  whom  you  didn't 
want  to  read  it,  and  so  I  made  bold  to  take  it" 

He  handed  Chalmers  the  letter. 

"That  was  very  kind  of  you,  and  I'm  grateful," 
he  said. 

The  automobile  rounded  the  familiar  curve  of  the 
road  and  drew  up  before  the  silent  house.  No  one 
appeared  on  the  steps  but  the  butler.  "Miss  Mary  is 


REQUIESCAT  213 

in  her  room,  and  will  not  be  do-wjn  for  an  Hour  or  so. 
She  told  me  that  your  room  was  ready  for  you  on 
your  arrival,  Sir,"  he  said. 

Smithson  drove  away,  with  the  promise  to  be  on 
hand  the  moment  he  was  needed.  The  doctors  had 
made  their  examination  and  had  already  left.  Chal- 
mers went  up  the  broad  staircase,  oppressed  by  a  sense 
of  hopeless  desolation.  Before  the  door  of  his  uncle's 
room  his  feet  were  arrested.  He  opened  the  door 
softly  and  looked  in.  The  windows,  half  darkened, 
were  wide  open,  and  through  them  came  the  twitter- 
ing of  birds,  the  sound  of  the  wind  in  the  trees,  and 
the  distant  clatter  of  a  mowing  machine  on  the  lower 
lawns — the  ironical  reminders  of  the  general  move- 
ment of  life  which  went  on  unaltered  by  the  disap- 
pearance of  man's  trivial  presence  from  the  large  the- 
atre of  the  world's  secular  drama. 

Upon  the  white  bed  lay  Hugh  Challoner.  The  mys- 
terious alchemy  of  death  had  already  changed  him. 
The  pouches  under  the  closed  eyes  had  disappeared, 
the  lines  on  the  high  forehead  were  smoothed  out,  the 
general  contour  of  the  face  was  rounded  in  a  new 
youth.  Death  had  brought  out  all  the  fineness  of  the 
face,  the  distinction,  the  look  of  breeding,  and  had 
added  to  it  a  kind  of  gentle  hauteur.  Looking  at  it, 
in  its  unassailable  pride  and  peace,  there  came  to  Chal- 
mers' memory,  Shakespeare's  moving  lament  for  Dun- 
can— 

"After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well; 
Treason  has  done  his  worst:  nor  steel  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  lery,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further." 


CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

He  stooped  to  the  cold  brow  and  kissed  it.  Then  he 
left  the  death  chamber  with  bowed  head,  and  went  to 
his  own  room.  There  he  read  his  uncle's  last  letter. 

"Ever  since  you  left  us,"  it  began  abruptly,  "I  have 
wished  that  we  could  have  had  a  more  intimate  oppor- 
tunity for  conversation  than  was  afforded  us.  There 
were  many  things  which  I  wished  to  say  to  you,  but  a 
foolish  reticence  prevented  me.  I  realise  now  that 
perhaps  after  all  I  can  better  say  them  with  my  pen. 
I  don't  promise  myself  that  even  when  I  have  written 
them  I  shall  mail  my  letter  to  you :  that  will  depend 
on  my  mood.  But  at  all  events  I  will  write  them,  as  a 
relief  to  my  own  mind,  if  nothing  else. 

"First,  as  regarded  my  own  life,  which  in  the 
nature  of  things  is  now  drawing  to  a  close.  I  will 
frankly  confess  that  I  am  not  satisfied  with  it.  The 
conviction  grows  upon  me  that  I  have  mismanaged  it. 
I  have  certainly  not  obtained  the  things  I  most  de- 
sired, and  therefore  am  not  satisfied  with  the  things 
I  have  obtained.  It  is  too  late  now  to  alter  matters. 
The  groove  of  habit  is  too  deep.  But,  in  thinking  of 
you,  I  have  asked  myself,  do  I  really  want  you  to  live 
a  life  like  mine?  Frankly  I  do  not,  though  I  spoke  to 
you  as  if  I  did.  I  see  now  that  the  only  valid  hope  a 
man  has  of  happiness  is  to  follow  faithfully  the  bent 
of  his  own  nature.  It  does  not  much  matter  what  a 
man  does  or  becomes;  if  he  moves  according  to  the 
real  bias  of  his  own  nature,  he  will  be  happy,  even 
though  it  be  as  a  tinker  or  a  gipsy,  and  if  he  doesn't 
he  will  be  unhappy.  I  don't  quite  know  what  the 
bias  of  your  nature  is,  and  perhaps  you  don't  know 


REQUIESCAT  215 

yourself;  but  whatever  it  is,  you  should  follow  it. 
I've  no  doubt  about  that.  Therefore  I  release  you 
from  any  responsibility  you  may  have  felt  to  obey  my 
wishes  in  entering  my  firm.  I  was  wrong  in  urging 
it.  You  will  be  acting  rightly  in  refusing  it. 

"I  depart  from  the  personal  character  of  this  note 
for  a  moment  to  make  a  general  observation.  The 
chief  defect  of  our  American  civilisation,  as  I  see  it, 
in  this  hour  of  late  wisdom,  is  that  it  does  not  develop 
variety  of  type.  Its  entire  pressure  is  directed  towards 
uniformity.  It  is  not  elastic  enough — therefore  it  has- 
no  room  for  a  true  individualism.  The  chances  are 
that  it  will  go  further  in  this  direction  in  the  future 
than  in  the  past.  We  shall  have  a  paternalism,  grow- 
ing more  and  more  intolerant,  interfering  with  free  de- 
velopment at  every  point,  enacting  sumptuary  laws  of 
all  kinds,  directing  at  last,  with  inquisitorial  vigilance, 
not  only  how  a  man  should  live  as  a  citizen,  but  what 
he  should  eat  and  drink,  how  he  shall  dress  and  em- 
ploy himself  as  a  private  individual.  I  won't  stress 
this  point,  with  which  perhaps  you  will  disagree;  all 
I  am  concerned  in  saying  is  that  I  would  rather  see 
America  free  than  prosperous,  and  that  those  who 
have  a  strong  instinct  for  freedom  must  be  strong 
to  follow  it,  if  the  future  is  not  to  drift  toward  a 
barren  conformity  of  life  and  opinion. 

"The  second  thing  I  have  to  say  is  concerning 
Mary.  I  have  expressed  the  hope  that  you  might 
marry  her.  I  have  altered  my  view,  and  now  say, 
positively,  I  hope  you  will  not.  I  say  this  because 
I  now  realise  that  Mary  is  by  nature  a  conformist 


2i6  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

— one  who  will  always  do  what  the  majority  do 
— and  you  are  by  nature  a  non-conformist.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  I  love  her  deeply.  After  all,  we 
love  each  other  by  instinct,  and  not  for  the  sake  of 
qualities.  I  can  love  her  deeply,  and  yet  I  am  not 
blind  to  a  certain  pliancy  to  convention  in  her. 

"If  I  thought  you  could  mould  her  to  your  own 
type,  I  would  say  marry  her  by  all  means.  But  I 
don't  believe  you  could.  If  a  man  is  to  be  happy  in 
marriage  he  must  discover  a  woman  who  is  absolutely 
sympathetic  to  his  own  type;  if  she  is  not,  he  will 
never  change  her,  and  nothing  but  unhappiness  will 
result  from  the  effort  to  do  so.  The  variation  be- 
tween them  is  likelier  to  widen  with  time  than  to 
diminish.  The  one  supremely  wise  act  of  my  life  was 
my  marriage,  for  I  found  a  woman  who  responded 
at  all  points  to  what  was  best  in  myself.  It  is  the 
memory  of  my  own  perfect  happiness  that  leads  me 
now  to  warn  you — that  leads  me,  in  fact,  to  recognise 
the  unwisdom  of  my  expressed  desire  that  you  should 
marry  Mary. 

"There  is  one  other  matter  on  which  my  mind  is 
somewhat  troubled.  I  have  always  assumed,  espe- 
cially since  you  went  to  the  war,  that  you  would  marry 
Mary.  I  therefore  was  satisfied  to  leave  all  my 
fortune  to  her,  in  the  belief  that  you  would  share  it. 
With  the  collapse  of  that  assumption  I  realise  that  I 
must  make  a  new  disposition  of  my  possessions.  I 
have  therefore  drawn  up  a  new  codicil  to  my  will,  a 
draft  of  which  I  enclose,  in  which  one-third  of  my 
fortune  will  go  to  you,  and  two-thirds  to  Mary.  You 


REQUIESCAT  217 

will  find  also  that  your  own  modest  patrimony  has 
been  increased  by  careful  investment,  so  that  you  will 
have  a  sufficient  income  from  these  two  sources  to  be 
independent.  I  wish  I  had  made  these  arrangements 
earlier,  but  it  was  not  until  you  left  me  a  few  days 
ago  that  I  arrived  at  the  definite  conclusion  that  you 
and  Mary  were  un  suited  for  each  other.  I  shall  see 
my  lawyer  early  to-morrow — Monday — and  complete 
this  business. 

"I  think  this  covers  all  I  wish  to  say.  I  will  not 
re-read  what  I  have  written,  for  fear  I  should  dis- 
cover some  scruple  in  myself  which  would  lead  me  to 
destroy  the  letter.  I  have  always  found  it  difficult 
to  express  my  deepest  feelings,  and  the  habit  of  re- 
ticence has  grown  upon  me.  So  I  will  let  my  words 
stand,  just  as  they  have  come  from  my  heart.  I  will 
only  add  that  I  sincerely  love  you,  and  pray  that 
God  may  bless  you.  HUGH  CHALLONER." 

Folded  by  itself  in  the  long  envelope  was  the  pro- 
posed codicil  to  the  will. 

"Well,  thank  God,  that  was  never  executed," 
thought  Chalmers.  "If  it  had  been  I  should  have  felt 
that  I  had  robbed  Mary.  And  what  a  lucky  chance 
that  no  one  knows  about  it  but  myself." 

He  was  about  to  destroy  it,  when  his  eye  was  at- 
tracted by  what  appeared  at  first  to  be  some  pencilled 
figures  on  the  back  of  the  paper.  Looking  more 

closely  he  recognised  Greek  lettering — \8riv  Sexwv. 

Then  followed  words  which  were  evidently  a  transla- 
tion of  the  incompleted  Greek  sentence.  "Having 
death  for  my  friend,  I  do  not  tremble  at  shadows." 


218  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

His  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  he  read  the  words,  writ- 
ten long  ago  by  some  unknown  Greek  who  had  doubt- 
less experienced  the  worst  vicissitudes  of  life,  and  had 
known  also  how  to  turn  their  edge  by  the  hope  of  the 
long  repose  of  death.  Had  this  been  Hugh  Chal- 
loner's  supreme  consolation  as  he  sat  at  his  desk,  re- 
viewing for  the  last  time  the  nature  of  his  life? 

He  folded  the  paper  and  put  it  carefully  away  in 
his  wallet.  For  the  sake  of  that  pencilled  sentence  he 
must  keep  it.  He  saw  his  uncle's  hand  writing  it, 
under  the  shaded  light  on  the  library  table  on  that 
quiet  Sabbath  night;  he  saw  the  shadow  of  the  unseen 
Consoler  falling  on  it  as  he  wrote.  A  strong  sense 
came  to  him  of  something  heroic  in  his  uncle's  life, 
after  all.  He  might  have  mismanaged  his  life  in 
missing  happiness,  but  he  had  known  how  to  bear  un- 
happiness  without  complaint.  He  had  not  trembled 
at  shadows. 

And  that,  rather  than  the  letter  itself,  seemed  to  be 
Hugh  Challoner's  last  message  to  him.  He  must 
learn  not  to  tremble  at  shadows.  He  must  be  strong 
enough  to  take  hold  of  life  boldly,  to  follow  the  real 
bias  of  his  nature,  as  Challoner  had  said,  and  to  count 
death  his  friend. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  victory  possible  to  man, 
but  the  secret  of  all  victory  is  the  conquest  of  fear. 
He  drew  up  the  blinds  and  looked  on  the  familiar 
landscape,  bright  in  the  summer  splendour.  Across 
that  green  valley,  and  up  those  purple  hills,  he  thought 
he  saw  a  bannered  host  moving,  and  heard  trumpets 


REQUIESCAT  219 

calling.    They  were  the  spiritual  bodyguard  of  a  soul 
that  had  not  feared. 


ii 

He  saw  nothing  of  Mary  till  the  morning  of  the 
funeral.  She  kept  her  room.  When  they  met  at  last 
it  was  beside  the  flower-buried  casket  of  Hugh  Chal- 
loner.  She  glided  into  the  room,  a  scarcely  recog- 
nisable figure,  robed  in  deep  crape,  out  of  which  rose, 
like  some  pale  flower,  a  tortured  face,  with  trembling 
lips  and  downcast  eyes,  beneath  which  black  rings 
had  gathered.  She  looked  so  pathetically  slight  and 
frail  that  he  felt  a  great  longing  to  take  her  in  his 
arms  and  comfort  her.  He  stood  beside  her  as  the 
solemn  burial  words  were  read  in  the  darkened  room, 
and  held  her  unresisting  hand  in  his.  He  had  never 
felt  so  truly  close  to  her  in  spirit  as  in  that  moment. 

"I  wasn't  very  good  to  him,"  she  whispered  as  the 
service  closed.  "Do  you  think  he  forgave  me?" 

"He  loved  you.  Love  forgives  everything,  dear," 
he  replied. 

"And  I  haven't  been  very  good  to  you,  have  I  ?  Can 
you  forgive  me?" 

That  was  the  only  intimate  word  which  passed  be- 
tween them.  She  lifted  her  cold  lips  to  his  in  a  formal 
passionless  kiss.  He  left  the  room  to  enter  the  wait- 
ing automobile  that  carried  him  to  the  grave. 

When  he  returned,  the  blinds  were  drawn  up,  and 
the  afternoon  sunshine  filled  the  room,  as  if  in  brutal 
assertion  of  the  fact  that  the  passing  of  a  human  crea- 


220  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

ture  from  the  places  that  have  known  him  leaves  no 
mark  on  the  eternal  order  of  Nature.  The  leaf  falls 
from  the  tree  and  is  forgotten,  the  eddy  sinks  in  the 
river,  the  bubble  disappears  in  the  ocean,  and  the  uni- 
versal life  resumes  its  common  courses.  The  changed 
room  had  its  curious  counterpart  in  Mary  Challoner. 
The  purple  patches  that  grief  had  made  beneath  her 
eyes  were  still  there,  but  the  eyes  were  now  alert,  and 
a  touch  of  fresh  colour  softly  flushed  her  cheeks. 

"Yes,"  she  was  saying  to  Mrs.  Smithson,  "I  feel  I 
couldn't  possibly  stay  here  after  what  has  happened. 
I  should  like  to  travel.  We  could  go  to  Spain,  couldn't 
.we?" 

The  conversation  stopped  abruptly  as  Chalmers 
entered  the  room. 

"We  think  Mary  ought  to  go  away  from  Melrose," 
said  Mrs.  Smithson,  half  apologetically.  "She  needs 
a  change,  poor  child.  What  would  you  think  of  a 
little  party  to  Spain,  Captain  Chalmers?" 

"I've  no  doubt  you'd  find  Spain  very  interesting," 
he  said  stiffly. 

"Were  you  ever  there?" 

"Once.  I  travelled  with  a  college  friend  from  San 
Sebastian  to  Gibraltar." 

"You  don't  say.  Won't  you  please  tell  us  some- 
thing about  it?" 

"It's  a  land  where  nothing  has  altered  for  four 
hundred  years.  And  if  you  cross  to  Tangier,  you'll 
find  a  land  that  hasn't  altered  for  two  thousand." 

He  felt  ashamed  of  himself  for  talking  of  Spain 
at  such  a  moment;  of  planning  pleasure  journeys  in 


REQUIESCAT  221 

a  room  where  but  two  hours  before  his  uncle  had  lain 
dead.  But  he  could  not  well  refuse  the  importunity 
of  Mrs.  Smithson  and  his  cousin.  And  so  he  spoke 
of  Burgos  and  Toledo,  with  their  magnificent 
cathedrals,  and  Madrid  with  its  arid  mediocrity,  and 
Cordoba  with  its  Moorish  splendour,  and  Seville  with 
its  thronged  and  coloured  life — and  because  the  places 
had  once  moved  him  to  interest  and  admiration  he 
could  not  help  speaking  of  them  with  enthusiasm. 

"How  delightful!"  said  Mary.  "I'd  no  idea  there 
was  so  much  to  see.  And  it  all  seems  so  new  and 
strange — I'm  sure  I  should  enjoy  it." 

"We  would  take  our  motor,"  said  Mrs.  Smithson, 
kindling  at  the  prospect.  "I've  heard  the  train  service 
is  very  bad." 

"It  was  always  bad,  and  since  the  war  I'm  told  it's 
much  worse,"  he  replied. 

"But  Spain  wasn't  in  the  war,  was  she?"  asked  Mrs. 
Smithson  in  naive  surprise. 

"O,  no.  Spain  has  made  a  great  deal  of  money  out 
of  the  war.  People  who've  done  the  same  would  feel 
very  much  at  home  there,  no  doubt." 

He  could  not,  for  the  life  of  him,  refrain  from  this 
retort.  But  it  passed  without  any  sting  of  irony  over 
the  placid  mind  of  Mrs.  Smithson.  Mary's  eyes, 
however,  flashed  indignantly. 

"I  should  think  it's  something  to  be  very  thankful 
for  that  there's  one  place  in  Europe  that  hasn't  been 
ruined  by  the  war,"  she  said. 

"One  place  in  which  the  American  globe-trotter  can 
resume  his  occupations  without  hindrance,  without 


222  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

any  inconvenient  intrusion  of  human  misery — O,  un- 
doubtedly there  is  much  to  be  thankful  for  in  that" 

"I'm  not  much  of  a  globe-trotter,"  went  on  the  un- 
perturbed Mrs.  Smithson,  with  her  friendliest  smile. 
"But  my  husband  says  we've  got  to  go  somewhere 
where  we  can  enjoy  life  a  bit  and  do  as  we  please, 
for  you  can't  do  it  in  America,  what  with  the  income 
tax  and  prohibition  and  that  sort  of  thing.  Why,  I 
heard  only  last  week  that  Senator  Parke's  daughter 
— you  know  who  I  mean — she  married  Mr.  Rose- 
baum — is  giving  up  her  house  on  Fifth  Avenue,  and 
intends  living  in  Paris  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  because 
she  says  she  won't  be  dictated  to  about  what  she  may 
eat  and  drink.  And  I  know  she  gave  nearly  half  a 
million  to  war  work  and  the  Red  Cross,  and  didn't 
grudge  it,  either." 

"I  assure  you  the  wine  in  Spain  is  very  bad,"  said 
Chalmers  with  a  sardonic  smile.' 

"Is  it?  Well,  that  won't  matter,  you  know,  be- 
cause we  shall  take  our  own,  of  course.  There's  a 
wine  called  Paul  Rogers  which  my  husband  particu- 
larly likes,  and  I'm  sure  he  wouldn't  like  to  travel 
without  it." 

A  little  flicker  of  amusement  in  Chalmers'  eyes,  a 
flush  of  embarrassment  on  Mary's  face,  warned  Mrs. 
Smithson  of  some  unsuspected  error  in  her  terms. 

"Why,  bless  me,  I  haven't  said  anything  improper, 
have  I?"  she  asked. 

"O,  dear  no,"  answered  Chalmers.  "The  wine  you 
name  is  a  most  excellent  wine,  and  I'm  not  surprised 
it  is  appreciated." 


REQUIESCAT  223 

"Well,  I'm  never  very  sure  about  the  names  of 
these  foreign  things,"  she  said  simply.  "They're  new 
to  me,  and  I  have  to  learn  them.  But  do  tell  me 
something  more  about  Spain.  Perhaps  you  would 
come,  too,  Captain  Chalmers.  I'm  sure  that  would 
be  delightful,  for  you  could  tell  us  just  where  to  go 
and  what  to  see." 

"No,  I  couldn't  do  that,  Mrs.  Smithson.  But  if  I 
can  help  you  with  any  information  I  shall  be  most 
happy  to  do  so.  And  I  quite  agree  it  would  be  the 
best  possible  thing  for  Mary  to  get  away  from  Mel- 
rose,  which  is  now  a  place  of  sad  memories  for  us 
all." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Mary  quietly.  And  there  was  a 
genuine  note  of  pain  in  her  voice  as  she  added :  "I 
couldn't  possibly  go  on  living  here  for  the  present. 
It  would  be  too— sad.  You  don't  blame  me  for  wish- 
ing to  go,  do  you,  John?" 

"I  have  no  right  to  blame  you,  and  certainly  I  have 
no  wish,  Mary.  Go  by  all  means,  and  wherever  you 
go,  may  God  be  kind  to  you." 

He  did  not  know  as  he  spoke  the  words  that  they 
were  a  valediction.  In  that  hour  Mary  Challoner 
passed  out  of  his  life,  and  he  was  glad  to  recollect  in 
after  years  that  his  last  words  to  her  were  kind  words. 
I  know  little  of  her  subsequent  history,  beyond  the 
bare  facts  that  she  went  to  Spain,  where  she  met  and 
married  a  certain  Count  Miraflores,  who  had  large 
but  encumbered  estates  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cor- 
doba. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  UNDER-DOG 


THE  strong  emotions  which  had  shaken  his  life 
had  produced  in  him  a  condition  of  lassitude,  which 
was  both  mental  and  physical.  He  began  to  be  aware 
that  he  had  put  a  strain  upon  his  strength,  which  he 
was  ill  able  to  bear.  A  craving  for  solitude  began 
to  possess  him.  He  was  tired  of  thinking,  tired  of 
grappling  with  problems  that  were  too  great  for  him. 

His  uncle's  death,  his  alienation  from  Mary,  had 
left  him  solitary.  It  appeared  to  him  that  he  was  the 
most  friendless  man  in  America.  Even  Caldwell's 
companionship  had  become  unattractive  to  him.  He 
was  aware  of  something  cold  and  hard  in  Caldwell's 
mind,  a  clear  academic  brilliance  which  spent  itself 
on  views,  opinions,  theories.  And  he  was  tired  of 
the  endless  discussion  of  views  and  opinions  because 
it  led  to  nothing  definite. 

He  found  the  same  lack  of  definition  in  the  daily 
papers  which  he  had  read  with  avidity  ever  since  his 
return.  They  were  full  of  excellent  articles  on  cur- 
rent events,  but  they  lacked  any  real  synthesis.  No 
one  appeared  to  grasp  the  general  situation  in  a  large 

224 


THE  UNDER-DOG  225 

way.  They  all  talked  glibly  of  new  eras,  the  recon- 
struction of  the  world  and  so  forth,  but  none  had  a 
workable  plan  to  present.  And  the  facts  they  re- 
ported were  profoundly  disconcerting  and  contradic- 
tory. It  was  clear  that  a  spirit  of  discontent  was  gen- 
eral. While  idealists  walked  with  their  heads  in  the 
air,  prophesying  a  golden  age,  maimed  soldiers 
limped  along  the  pavements  selling  tapes  and  buttons. 
(In  one  town  adjacent  to  New  York  more  than  sixty 
peddlers'  licenses  had  been  applied  for  by  returning 
soldiers.)  And  there  were  all  sorts  of  army  scandals 
coming  to  light,  stories  of  arrears  of  pay,  of  postal 
and  hospital  negligence,  of  bribes  taken  by  doctors 
and  officers,  of  work  refused  to  soldiers,  and,  in  some 
cases,  even  of  contempt  for  their  claims  to  considera- 
tion. Chalmers  wearied  himself  in  puzzling  over  these« 
signs  of  the  times,  and  in  wondering  what  they  por-i 
tended. 

And  then  there  was  Claire  Gunnison. 

His  first  instinct  was  to  fly  to  her  on  the  day  he 
left  Melrose  after  his  uncle's  funeral.  He  had 
promised  to  meet  her,  and  he  knew  that  she  was  ex- 
pecting him.  But  in  his  present  mood  he  shrank 
from  meeting  her.  What  was  he  to  say  to  her  ?  He 
did  not  know.  He  did  not  wish  to  meet  her  as  a  beg- 
gar for  her  sympathy.  His  pride  shrank  from  that 
He  knew  perfectly  well  that  when  he  did  meet  her  the 
meeting  would  be  decisive.  They  could  not  maintain 
the  control  imposed  by  platonic  friendship.  They 
must  either  draw  nearer  to  each  other  or  drift  further 
apart.  His  uncle's  warning  words  rang  in  his  mind, 


226  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

that  the  entire  happiness  of  a  man's  life  depended  on 
finding  a  woman  absolutely  sympathetic  to  all  that  was 
finest  in  himself.  Could  he  be  sure  of  that  absolute 
affinity?  If  he  went  to  her  now,  beaten  down  by 
mental  and  physical  lassitude,  would  he  not  be  only 
too  likely  to  mistake  an  emotional  sympathy  for  this 
real  affinity  of  nature?  No;  when  he  went  to  her, 
it  must  be  in  his  strength  and  not  his  weakness.  His 
giving  must  match  her  own. 

Of  course  he  might  lose  her  by  delay.  There  was 
always  that  chance,  but  he  did  not  attach  much  im- 
portance to  it,  because  he  had  tacitly  accepted  her 
fatalistic  view  of  life.  The  lines  of  their  lives  had 
crossed  twice;  if  it  was  so  ordered  by  the  great  de- 
signer of  human  destinies,  they  would  cross  again. 
Nothing  could  hurry  that  process  and  nothing  could 
postpone  it. 

Late  at  night  he  wandered  into  Sixty-seventh  Street 
and  found  her  home.  A  light  burned  in  a  second  floor 
window;  he  pictured  her  sitting  there  by  a  shaded 
lamp,  reading;  putting  her  book  down  as  she  caught 
the  echo  of  a  footfall  on  the  street,  then  leaning  back 
against  the  cushions  of  her  chair,  quietly  dreaming, 
recalling  sweet  and  fugitive  memories,  silently  wait- 
ing— waiting.  Waiting  without  anxiety,  calmly,  con- 
fidently. Had  she  not  said  that  though  he  and  she 
should  start  from  the  utmost  ends  of  the  earth  they 
would  come  face  to  face  at  last,  if  it  was  so  ordered? 
He  looked  down  the  dark  length  of  the  street.  He 
knew  it  well.  The  house  at  the  north  corner  was  the 
house  in  which  his  uncle  had  lived  before  he  built 


THE  UNDER-DOG  227 

the  house  at  Melrose  for  Emily  Challoner.  As  a  boy, 
joyfully  released  from  school,  he  had  run  up  those 
steps ;  he  could  see  very  clearly  the  dim  old-fashioned 
room,  with  its  heavy  walnut  furniture,  and  his  Aunt 
coming  towards  him  with  outstretched  arms  of  wel- 
come. It  was  strange  that  Claire  Gunnison  was  living 
in  the  same  street.  He  had  not  thought  of  that  be- 
fore. Might  not  this  also  be  an  augury  that  her  line 
of  life  and  his  were  bound  to  meet,  that  forces  which 
neither  could  exactly  define  were  really  pushing  them 
together — the  secret  tides  of  destiny,  which  we,  in  our 
ignorance,  call  events  and  accidents? 

As  he  walked  back  to  his  hotel,  along  Fifth  Avenue, 
something  in  the  dim  shapes  of  trees  and  rock  in 
Central  Park  evoked  a  memory  of  his  boyhood.  They 
bore  a  curious  resemblance  to  a  line  of  shore,  piled 
against  the  polished  surface  of  the  street,  which 
gleamed  with  a  newly  fallen  shower.  A  shore  line 
and  the  gleam  of  water — and  there  came  instantly  to 
his  recollection  a  lonely  stretch  of  coast  on  Long 
Island  where  as  a  child  he  'had  spent  many  happy 
hours.  Emily  Challoner,  always  eager  to  forsake 
New  York,  had  discovered  it  Its  solitude,  which 
others  found  a  disadvantage,  was  to  her  its  great 
attraction. 

He  saw  it  very  plainly — sand-dunes,  rising  from  a 
level  beach,  a  few  simple  cottages,  a  long  white  road 
running  back  through  the  marshes  for  half  a  mile  to 
an  old  frame  house,  standing  in  a  thick  grove  of  trees, 
and  a  garden  full  of  flowers.  It  was  a  true  Colonial 
house,  as  he  remembered  it,  with  a  wide  plain  panelled 


228  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

i 
hall,  low-pitched  rooms,  a  dining-room  with  a  brick 

floor  and  a  vast  brick  fire-place,  where  a  wood  fire; 
burned,  over  which  still  hung  upon  an  iron  bar  an 
iron  caldron,  a  relic  of  tlie  age  in  which  the  house  was 
built.  It  had  been  an  inn,  and  then  a  private  school. 
When  Emily  Challoner  took  a  lease  on  it,  she  ex- 
pended on  it  her  talent  for  restoration.  She  repapered 
the  rooms  with  papers  of  the  Colonial  times — one  he 
remembered  well,  a  landscape  paper,  which  gave  one 
the  sense  of  sitting  out  of  doors.  She  filled  it  with 
Colonial  furniture,  and  hung  upon  the  walls  old 
samplers  and  narrow  mirrors  and  one  or  two  quaint 
stiff  portraits  of  the  time  of  Washington.  And  there, 
for  a  time,  she  spent  her  summers,  delighting  in  the 
severe  simplicity  of  the  old  house,  through  whose 
open  windows  the  sharp  sea-air  blew,  and  the  sound 
of  the  sea  passed  like  the  low  harmony  of  an  old  song 
of  which  the  ear  never  tired.  The  Three  Cups  Inn 
— yes,  that  was  what  it  had  been  called,  in  the  days 
when  old  fishermen  came  out  of  the  blowing  night, 
and  sat  beside  the  blazing  hearth,  and  the  name  had 
always  stuck  to  it.  And,  suddenly,  the  thought  came 
to  Chalmers,  why  not  go  there  and  rest?  There,  if 
anywhere,  was  solitude,  and  the  kind  of  memory,  too, 
which  sweetened  solitude,  and  made  it  habitable. 

When  he  reached  his  hotel,  Baldy  met  him,  as- 
siduous, cheerful,  anxious  to  please ;  and  it  struck  him 
that  probably  Baldy  was  the  best  friend  he  had  in  all 
this  populated  loneliness  of  New  York.  Baldy  knew 
him  as  no  one  else  did;  he  had  seen  him  in  all  his 
moods,  he  had  been  with  him  when  long  and  horrible 


THE  UNDER-DOG  229 

discomforts  set  the  nerves  on  edge,  in  hours  of  su- 
preme exaltation,  in  hours  of  unconquerable  depres- 
sion; he  knew  the  best  and  worst  of  him.  A  sudden 
warmth  filled  his  heart  as  he  thought  of  Baldy's 
humble  devotion  and  a  conviction  seized  him  that  he 
must  never  again  allow  himself  to  part  from  him. 
Such  fidelity  as  his  was  a  rare  and  beautiful  thing. 
Beneath  all  that  was  common  and  foolish  in  the  man 
this  fidelity  lay,  like  a  precious  deposit,  a  vein  of 
purest  gold. 

"Baldy,"  he  said,  as  the  little  man  unlaced  his  long 
riding  boots,  "I'm  thinking  of  leaving  New  York  for 
a  time.  What  would  you  say  to  a  little  journey  into 
the  country?" 

"I'd  be  very  glad  to  go,  sir.  I'm  tired  of  walking 
pavements,  and  it'd  be  fine  to  feel  the  clean  earth 
under  one's  feet  again." 

"So  you  don't  like  New  York,  eh?" 

"I  like  some  of  it  well  enough,  sir.  There's  the 
picture  shows.  They're  a  bit  of  all  right,  except  when 
they  do  war  pictures." 

"What's  wrong  with  the  war  pictures,  Baldy?" 

"Those  that  is  all  right  makes  me  want  to  go  back, 
and  those  that  isn't  makes  me  mad.  I  don't  like  seeing 
a  chap  like  Charlie  Chaplin  pretend  he's  a  soldier,  in  a 
fake  trench — him  as  took  good  care  he  didn't  come 
nigh  nor  by  a  real  trench.  It  kind  of  makes  me  sick, 
so  that  I  can't  laugh.  I  feel  like  throwing  things  at 
him." 

"And  what  else  is  wrong  in  New  York,  Baldy?" 

"There's  too  many  people,  sir,  an'  they  all  look  so 


230  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

damn  satisfied,  if  you'll  'scuse  me  saying  it.  An"  all 
these  big  buildings,  sir,  they  make  you  feel  as  if  you 
was  crawling  at  the  bottom  of  a  drain,  and  couldn't 
get  out.  They  make  you  feel  as  if  you  was  a  inseck 
and  not  a  man." 

"Well,  Baldy,  what  would  you  say  to  a  month  in  a 
lonely  house  beside  the  sea?" 

"I'd  like  that  fine,  sir.  I've  never  seen  the  sea, 
'xcept  going  and  coming  on  it,  and  that  don't  count. 
What  sort  of  place  is  it,  if  I  might  be  so  bold  as  to 
ask?  Would  there  be  many  servants  in  it,  sir?" 

"There'd  be  no  one  but  ourselves,  Baldy.  You'd 
have  to  cook,  and  do  everything  there  was  to  be 
done." 

"Well,  I  can  cook — you  know  that,  sir.  I  learned 
in  a  lumber-camp,  where  if  I  didn't  do  things  right 
they  pitched  their  boots  at  me.  It'd  be  like  camping 
again,  wouldn't  it?" 

"Something  like  it.  Well,  I'll  see  about  it  to-mor- 
row, Baldy.  And  I'll  promise  you  I  won't  throw  my 
boots  at  you,  if  your  omelets  aren't  good." 

"I  never  was  very  good  at  omelets,  I  know,"  said 
Baldy,  with  a  contrite  air.  "But  then  look  at  the  eggs 
them  Frenchies  gave  me.  You  could  hear  the  chickens 
talkin'  in  them.  You  give  me  fresh  eggs,  sir,  an'  I'll 
be  bound  you  won't  have  no  cause  to  complain." 

"I  don't  think  I  ever  did  complain,  did  I  ?" 

"No,  you  didn't.  But  I  see  you  eating  'em  as  if 
they  was  medicine,  and  dropping  some  of  'em  in  the 
mud  when  you  thought  I  wasn't  looking.  Particularly 
one  morning  when  we  was  at  Arras.  But  the  next 


THE  UNDER-DOG  231 

morning  things  was  different,  for  in  the  meantime  I'd 
held  that  Frenchy's  head  under  the  pump  for  'arf  an 
'our,  and  he  told  me  where  he  kep'  his  good  eggs." 

"So  that's  the  way  you  looked  after  my  grub,  was 
it,  Baldy?" 

"That  were  one  way,  an*  a  pretty  good  way,  too, 
for  it  answered  all  right." 

Chalmers  laughed ;  it  was  so  like  Baldy  to  have  done 
a  thing  like  this.  He  remembered  very  well  the  day 
when  Baldy  had  arrived  in  the  lines,  a  forlorn  ob- 
ject, whose  company  was  apparently  desired  by  no 
one.  Something  in  his  face  attracted  Chalmers — a 
whimsical  look,  like  that  of  a  child  detected  in  a 
fault,  a  sort  of  shamefaced  yet  laughing  defiance,  a 
challenging  cheerfulness  under  difficulties.  And  be- 
cause Chalmers'  batman  had  been  wounded  the  day 
before  and  had  gone  to  the  base  hospital,  he  took  on 
Baldy  in  his  place,  but  with  considerable  doubt  as  to 
the  wisdom  of  his  choice.  The  chief  complaint  made 
against  Baldy  had  been  insubordination,  which  had 
really  meant  nothing  more  than  a  boyish  desire  for 
private  adventures,  and  an  unwillingness  to  be  un- 
justly strafed.  Chalmers  discovered  immediately  that 
the  one  key  which  unlocked  the  best  qualities  of 
Baldy 's  nature  was  to  treat  him  as  a  reasonable  crea- 
ture who  might  be  trusted.  He  took  care  to  give  him 
no  order  that  was  not  reasonable,  but  to  insist  firmly 
that  any  order  so  given  must  be  obeyed  absolutely. 
His  thirst  for  private  adventures,  especially  the  collec- 
tion of  "souvenirs"  from  dead  Germans,  often 
gathered  under  shell-fire,  still  continued,  but  Chal- 


232  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

mers  was  as  conveniently  blind  to  these  episodes  as 
he  could  be.  The  result  of  this  treatment  was  the 
development  of  a  spirit  of  adoring  loyalty  in  Baldy. 
There  was  no  peril  he  would  not  share  with  Chalmers, 
no  risk  that  he  would  not  incur  to  serve  his  lightest 
wish.  In  that  confused  and  friendless  life  of  his, 
which  had  begun  in  Barnardo's  Homes,  developed  on 
Canadian  wheat-farms  and  lumber-camps,  always  ex- 
posed to  hardship  and  often  to  brutality,  Chalmers 
was  the  first  man  who  had  made  him  feel  human. 
The  bond  thus  created  lay  deep  beneath  all  surface 
differences  of  rank  and  education,  and  it  had  been 
toughened  by  the  strain  of  common  suffering  and 
peril.  It  was  little  wonder  that  in  this  hour  of  lone- 
liness Chalmers  felt  that  the  best  friend  he  had  in 
New  York  was  this  orphan  of  a  London  slum.  Many 
a  man  to  whom  life  has  given  lavish  gifts  of  popular- 
ity and  esteem  might  search  the  store-house  of  his 
wealth  without  discovering  any  friendship  so  fine  in 
quality  as  this  humble  affection  which  Baldy  had  for 
Chalmers. 

"Well,"  continued  Chalmers,  "I  think  I'm  about  as 
tired  of  New  York  as  you  are,  Baldy,  though  for  dif- 
ferent reasons.  So  to-morrow  I'll  see  if  I  can  get 
this  house  I  spoke  of.  I  used  to  know  it  when  I  was 
a  boy,  and  I'd  like  to  see  it  again." 

"An'  I'm  to  go  with  you,  sir?" 

"Certainly.  I  wouldn't  think  of  going  without 
you." 

Baldy's  face  lit  up  with  pleasure. 

"It'll  be  like  old  times  to  go  camping  again,"  he 


THE  UNDER-DOG  233 

said.  And  he  added  his  formula  of  allegiance,  "I'll 
serve  you  faithful,  sir.  I  always  did,  and  I  always 
will." 

n 

Chalmers  found  no  di^lculty  in  arranging  for  a 
temporary  occupancy  of  the  Three  Cups  Inn.  The 
old  house  was  too  remote  to  be  easily  let ;  the  popular 
tide  flowed  toward  the  great  hostelries  and  elaborate 
cottages  which  had  arisen  two  to  three  miles  north- 
ward. A  sea-fog  was  blowing  in  on  the  night  when 
he  took  possession,  and  the  house  bore  a  strange  re- 
semblance to  a  stranded  ship,  some  high-pooped  gal- 
leon, left  derelict  and  solitary  on  the  grey  marshes. 
He  entered  it  nevertheless  with  a  sense  of  home-com- 
ing. It  was  not  altered  much  since  the  days  when  he 
had  been  taken  there  as  a  child.  The  quaint  corner 
cupboards,  with  their  bits  of  old  pewter  and  china, 
were  there,  as  Emily  Challoner  had  left  them;  the 
landscape  paper  still  opened  up  vistas  of  impossible 
seas  and  hills  crowned  with  temples,  and  on  the  wide 
brick  hearth  a  fire  of  sea-wood  burned,  throwing  off 
little  jets  of  blue  and  lavender  flame.  He  came  out 
of  the  fog  as  two  generations  earlier  the  fishermen 
had  come  out  of  the  blowing  night,  shaking  the  sea 
water  from  their  oil-skin  capes,  to  find  brief  respite 
from  the  daily  battle  of  their  lives  in  the  warm  com- 
fort of  the  old  low-pitched  rooms. 

He  slept  that  night  as  he  had  not  slept  since  he  left 
the  hospital.  The  sea-wind,  moist  with  fog  and  salt, 
stirred  the  thin  chintz  curtains  of  the  windows,  and 


234  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

the  distant  fall  of  waves  on  the  shore  filled  the  room, 
like  the  beating  of  a  pulse.  He  woke  next  morning 
to  a  world  recreated.  Birds  were  singing  in  the  elms, 
a  sky  of  blue  fire  quivered  with  a  million  separate 
flashes  of  joyous  light,  and  half  a  mile  away  was 
spread  the  long  azure  ribbon  of  the  sea.  His  spirits 
rose  to  greet  the  morning  freshness.  He  felt  as 
though  he  had  recaptured  his  boyhood,  and  a  ridicu- 
lous notion  seized  him  that  presently  he  would  find 
himself  trotting  through  the  marshes,  with  his  hand 
in  Emily  Challoner's,  to  spend  long  hours  on  the  beach 
in  building  sand-castles  and  casual  bathing. 

His  first  day  in  the  Three  Cups  was  pure  Nirvana. 
He  had  no  wish  to  read,  to  think,  to  stray  far  from 
the  great  elms  that  cast  a  wide  shadow  on  the  green 
lawn.  He  was  content  to  sit  entirely  still,  to  hear 
the  hum  of  bees,  to  watch  the  antics  of  a  grey  squirrel 
in  the  branches  of  the  elms,  to  open  his  lungs  for  long 
draughts  of  the  good  sea  air.  For  the  first  time  he 
realised  how  life  had  bruised  and  hurt  him  in  the  last 
four  years.  And  for  the  first  time  he  realised  his 
recovered  freedom.  He  was  no  longer  a  man  under 
authority,  with  no  voice  in  the  disposition  of  his  own 
life.  There  was  no  one  to  give  him  orders,  and  no 
responding  urgency  in  himself  to  obey  them.  For  the 
first  time  he  had  laid  aside  his  uniform,  and  dressed 
himself  in  an  old  suit  of  serviceable  flannels.  They 
were  the  symbols  of  a  great  emancipation.  He  had 
been  a  man  bought  and  paid  for;  once  more  he  was 
miraculously  his  own  man. 

Baldy  took  care  of  him  with  the  patient  assiduity 


THE  UNDER-DOG  235 

of  an  old  nurse.  He  had  justified  his  skill  with  ome- 
lets. Early  in  the  day  he  had  gone  off  to  Hampton 
and  had  returned  laden  with  provisions. 

"Reminds  one  of  old  days,"  he  said  with  a  grin. 

But  the  old  days  seemed  remote  as  a  life  once  lived 
and  endured  on  another  plane  of  being  to  Chalmers, 
as  he  sat,  idly  dreaming  in  the  shadow  of  the  elms. 

That  night  he  slept  again  the  untroubled  sleep  of 
a  child,  and  the  morning  once  more  came  in  gold  and 
azure.  But  this  second  morning  brought  a  little  rest- 
less wave  of  thought  like  the  ripple  of  a  dropped  stone 
in  placid  water.  To  still  that  restlessness  he  went  off 
to  the  beach  alone,  and  spent  the  morning  swimming. 
A  fresh  breeze  was  blowing,  and  the  long  Atlantic 
rollers  came  in  stately  procession,  foam-topped,  like 
the  white  manes  of  advancing  cavalry.  He  dived 
through  them,  and  swam  far  out  to  sea,  rejoicing  in 
his  strength.  That  night  he  slept  again  in  deep  con- 
tentment, but  'when  he  woke  next  morning  the  wave 
of  restless  thought  in  his  mind  had  become  perceptibly 
stronger.  Had  he  not  come  there  to  think  out  the 
problems  of  his  life?  Well,  he  must  begin  to  do  it 
It  would  never  do  just  to  live 

Yet  why  not?  Was  there  any  higher  wisdom  pos- 
sible to  man  than  just  to  live,  to  be  content  with  the 
act  and  bliss  of  living?  Men  thought  too  much. 
They  thought  until  thought  became  a  malady.  They 
thought  so  much  that  they  forgot  to  live.  What  more 
could  man  ask  of  the  Powers  but  health  and  a  day? 
Had  not  some  wise  writer  said  that  such  a  posses- 
sion made  the  pomp  of  empires  ridiculous?  Of 


236  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

course  some  men  had  to  think  for  the  race — scholar^ 
and  inventors,  for  example,  on  whom,  in  a  sense,  hu- 
man progress  depended.  But  had  the  world  really 
progressed  in  any  real  way?  The  wise  Greeks  knew 
as  much  of  human  life  as  any  men  have  ever  known, 
and  as  for  man's  religious  knowledge,  was  it  not  all 
based  on  words  uttered  two  thousand  years  ago  by  a 
Jewish  Carpenter? 

And  there  was  another  thing:  men  who  insisted  on 
thinking  for  themselves  had  almost  always  thought 
wrongly.  They  had  believed  themselves  superior,  and 
naturally  had  sought  to  inflict  their  superiority  on 
others.  If  Alexander  hadn't  thought  himself  supe- 
rior, if  Bonaparte  hadn't  thought  so  proudly  of  his 
destiny,  if  the  Kaiser  hadn't  maddened  his  narrow 
brain  with  thinking  too  much  of  himself  and  the  thing 
he  called  Kultur,  how  much  misery  and  horror  the 
world  would  have  been  spared!  And  the  same  thing 
applied  to  men  like  the  great  Inquisitors — Calvin  as 
well  as  Torquemada — who  became  bigots  by  too  much 
thinking,  and  sought  to  force  all  mankind  into  a  con- 
formity with  their  opinions.  If  it  came  to  a  questioit 
of  human  happiness,  the  world  would  have  been  muck 
happier  if  such  men  had  never  lived.  Or  if  they  had 
lived  humbly,  they  themselves  would  have  been  hap- 
pier. Bonaparte  might  have  lived  and  died  in  great 
content  as  a  Corsican  lawyer;  he  made  a  poor  bar- 
gain when  he  bought  splendour  at  the  price  of  St 
Helena.  The  Kaiser  might  have  been  a  happy  man 
if  he  had  lived  on  his  estates,  in  a  plain  round  of 


THE  UNDER-DOG  237 

simple   pleasures   and   duties,   and   had   never   been 
afflicted  with  the  bacillus  of  megalomania. 

To  refuse  the  urgency  of  individual  thinking,  and 
just  live,  must  be  a  wiser  plan  of  living  than  he  sus- 
pected since  it  was  the  plan  most  men  adopted.  Those 
weather-worn  fishermen  who  came  to  the  Three  Cups 
generations  ago,  pleased  with  a  little  respite  from  the 
rigours  of  the  sea,  thankful  for  a  mug  of  beer  and  a 
blazing  fire,  were  probably  much  happier  than  he  was. 
Their  code  of  life  was  so  simple  that  it  didn't  need  to 
be  thought  out — it  was  an  affair  of  instinct.  They 
lived  as  wise  children,  taking  no  thought  for  the  mor- 
row, and  was  there  not  a  certain  divine  authority  for 
such  a  method  of  life? 

As  he  looked  at  those  green  marshes,  through  which 
the  water-ways  ran  like  blue  veins,  at  the  hedges 
which  were  beautiful  with  wild  roses,  and  the  little 
pastures  where  cows  fed,  and  the  simple  houses  of 
the  fishermen,  like  brown  nests  pushed  into  the  hol- 
lows of  the  sand  dunes,  and  the  old  paths  beside  the 
waterways,  where  human  feet  had  travelled  for  a  cen- 
tury or  more,  he  wondered  sadly  why  men  so  persis- 
tently refused  the  happiness  that  lay  in  humble  things. 
Well,  was  he  willing  to  accept  it?  In  his  present 

mood  he  was,  but Why  utter  that  disconcerting 

"but"?  What  sense  was  there  in  clouding  to-day's 
splendour  with  the  threat  of  an  unknown  to-morrow? 
That  night,  under  a  sky  gemmed  with  innumerable 
stars,  he  walked  beside  the  sea,  entranced  by  the  mys- 
tery and  immensity  of  the  scene.  The  little  waves 
ran  up  the  sands  in  a  white  wavering  line  of  foam,  a 


238  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

soft  breeze  blew  out  of  the  heart  of  the  waters,  the 
stars  hung  reflected  in  the  little  pools  left  by  the  ebb- 
ing tide.  A  mile  away  a  soft  burst  of  light  showed 
where  the  new-made  town  stood,  affronting  the 
ancient  majesty  of  things  with  a  spurious  gaiety.  So 
all  the  towns  and  cities  man  had  built  stood  amid 
environing  eternities  of  silence,  the  mere  excrescence 
of  a  moment.  So  man  forever  walked  among  things 
immense,  secret,  unfathomable;  himself  utterly  insig- 
nificant. And  yet,  in  his  pride  of  heart,  he  actually 
imagined  the  universe  waiting  for  his  footsteps,  a 
mere  theatre,  with  the  stars  for  foot-lights,  especially 
arranged  for  him,  that  on  its  boards  he  might  play 
his  little  part.  Was  there  ever  folly  so  fatuous,  so 
impertinent  and  so  incredible? 

In  such  vague  dreams  as  these,  in  aimless  wander- 
ings along  the  beach,  in  a  state  of  almost  complete 
passivity,  he  passed  his  days.  At  last  there  came  a 
morning  when  the  compulsion  to  think  seized  him 
with  a  relentless  grip.  He  found  himself  once  more 
face  to  face  with  the  problems  of  his  own  life. 
Nirvana  was  over.  And,  curiously  enough,  this 
awakening  came  through  Baldy. 


m 

The  previous  night  had  been  wet  and  windy,  and 
he  and  Baldy  sat  by  the  sea-wood  fire,  in  a  kind  of 
social  silence.  To  pass  the  time,  rather  than  with 
any  serious  intent,  he  had  asked  Baldy  to  tell  him 
something  about  his  life. 


THE  UNDER-DOG  239 

"There  ain't  much  to  tell,"  he  had  replied. 

"Well,  tell  me  what  there  is." 

Baldy  rubbed  the  back  of  his  head,  and  looked  em- 
barrassed. 

"A  gentleman  like  you,  sir,  wouldn't  be  interested 
in  what  happened  to  a  man  like  me.  It  isn't  to  be 
expected." 

The  words,  so  humbly  uttered,  had  an  unintended 
sting  in  them.  Here  was  a  man  in  whose  intimate 
company  he  had  passed  the  most  dramatic  years  of 
his  life.  They  had  marched  together  through  mud 
and  corruption,  slept  side  by  side,  shared  physical 
misery  and  peril,  and  through  all  the  tests  of  warfare 
had  matched  quality  with  quality.  He  had  been  no 
braver  than  Baldy,  and  had  exhibited  no  finer  spirit. 
Yet  it  had  never  occurred  to  him  before  to  ask  Baldy 
about  his  own  life.  He  had  accepted  the  man's  fidel- 
ity as  his  right  He  had  accepted  the  fact  of  a  social 
gulf  between  them  as  inevitable.  "A  gentleman  like 
you  wouldn't  be  interested  in  what  happened  to  a 
man  like  me";  he  had  certainly  given  cause  for  such 
a  conclusion,  and  compunction  seized  him  as  he  recol- 
lected it. 

"You  mustn't  think  that,"  he  said  gently.  "Believe 
me,  I'm  greatly  interested  in  you,  Baldy.  I  owe  you 
a  great  deal." 

"I've  never  thought  of  it  that  way,"  was  the  reply. 
"Seems  to  me,  'tis  all  the  other  way  about.  You  were 
the  first  man  as  ever  give  me  a  chance,  sir." 

"Not  the  first,  surely,  Baldy." 

"The  first  as  I  can  recolleck.     Do  you  know  the 


240  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

Old  Kent  Road  in  London,  sir  ?  Well,  there's  a  place 
down  there  they  used  to  call  the  Mint,  near  Long 
Lane  it  is,  and  it  were  there  I  was  born.  My  father 
worked  in  a  tannery  down  Bermondsey  way,  until  one 
winter  when  there  wasn't  any  more  work  for  him,  and 
then  he  became  a  thief.  They  were  mostly  thieves  in 
the  Mint,  and  not  ashamed  of  it,  neither.  I've  heard 
of  a  'undred  a  fifty  of  'em  at  a  supper  given  by  a 
police-court  missionary,  an'  all  of  'em  as  pleased  with 
themselves  as  though  they'd  been  millionaires.  But 
the  time  came  when  father  got  lagged,  and  that  was 
the  last  I  saw  of  father.  Mother  died  while  he  was 
in  prison,  and  I  was  took  away  to  Dr.  Barnardo's 
Homes.  After  that  they  sent  me  to  Canada,  an'  I 
was  put  to  work  upon  a  farm  out  beyond  Winnipeg. 
There  I  was  knocked  about  a  good  bit,  for  I  found 
Bamardo  boys  weren't  thought  much  of  by  anybody. 
One  day  they  sent  me  up  to  put  new  shingles  on  the 
roof  of  a  barn,  and  they  thought  it  a  good  joke  to 
pepper  me  with  bird-shot,  when  I  was  a  stoopin' 
down  nailing  on  them  blamed  shingles.  That  was  too 
much  for  me,  and  so  I  run  away.  After  that  I  wan- 
dered up  and  down,  in  all  sorts  of  places,  sometimes 
working,  sometimes  loafing — but  this  I  will  say  for 
myself,  I  kep'  honest.  You  see  I  remembered  father, 
and  I  was  mortal  afraid  of  being  a  thief.  I  worked 
on  the  railway,  and  on  farms  at  harvests,  and  in  lum- 
ber-camps in  the  winter,  and  once  I  tried  serving  in 
a  saloon,  but  I  was  more  afraid  of  that  than  thieving, 
because  I  knew  if  once  the  drink  got  a  hold  of  me,  it 
.would  be  all  up.  That's  about  all  I  recolleck — until 


THE  UNDER-DOG  241 

the  War  came,  and  then  I  said,  'Here's  your  chance,' 
and  I  went  over  with  the  first  lot." 

"And  what  about  the  army,  Baldy?" 

"Well,  I  liked  the  fightin'  first-rate,  but  somehow  I 
didn't  like  the  other  part  of  it  There  was  too  much 
orderin'  about,  and  bein'  strafed  for  nothin'  in  par- 
ticular. I'd  lived  free,  and  done  as  I  liked  too  long, 
I  suppose." 

"How  old  are  you,  Baldy?" 

"Do  you  mean  my  military  age  or  my  civil  age, 
sir?" 

"Why,  your  real  age,  of  course." 

"Well,  my  civil  age  is  forty-one,  but  my  military 
age  is  thirty.  At  least,  that  were  what  I  told  'em 
when  I  joined  up,  and  they  didn't  contradict  me." 

This  piece  of  information  was  communicated  with 
an  insinuating  grin. 

"And  you  never  thought  of  settling  down?" 

"Marryin',  you  mean,  I  suppose,  sir?  Well  there 
was  a  girl  once,  but  she  died.  After  that  I  didn't 
seem  to  care  much  what  happened  to  me." 

"And  in  all  those  years,  no  one  gave  you  a  helping 
hand,  Baldy?" 

"Helpin'  hands  aren't  as  frequent  as  some  folks 
think  they  are.  I  used  to  hear  a  lot  about  it  when 
I  was  a  boy  at  Barnardo's.  You'd  think  from  what 
they  said,  the  world  was  full  o'  helpin'  hands.  But 
when  I  got  away  from  Barnardo's  I  found  most  men 
wanted  all  the  hands  they  had  to  help  themselves  an' 
expected  you  to  do  the  same.  No,  sir,  you  was  the 


242  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

first  as  ever  truly  helped  me.  It's  twenty-five  years 
since  I  left  Barnardo's,  an'  you  are  the  first." 

There  were  other  details  in  Baldy's  simple  Iliad 
that  Chalmers  drew  from  him  by  degrees  as  they 
talked  by  the  fire  that  night.  He  had  once  saved  a 
man's  life  on  a  lumber  raft  in  the  Fraser  River,  and 
had  paid  the  price  of  his  heroism  with  two  months  in 
hospital  with  pneumonia.  He  had  been  fireman  on 
a  leaking  steamer  that  had  struck  a  reef  and  gone 
down  at  the  entrance  to  the  harbour  of  Prince  Rupert, 
and  had  escaped  death  only  by  the  coolness  of  his 
courage.  Life  had  been  for  him  a  long  adventure, 
always  encountered  with  calm  resourcefulness  and 
high  spirits.  He  claimed  no  merit  for  these  qualities. 
All  that  he  had  done  and  been  he  regarded  as  com- 
monplace, part  of  the  day's  work.  He  made  no  com- 
plaint that  he  had  found  the  world  unfriendly.  A 
poor  man,  whose  birthplace  was  the  Mint,  and  whose 
father  was  a  thief,  was  not  entitled  to  much  consid- 
eration. But  at  the  end  of  his  recital,  he  said  one 
thing  that  Chalmers  found  infinitely  pathetic. 

"There's  lots  of  chaps  like  me,"  he  said.  "Do  you 
really  think,  sir,  the  world's  going  to  be  any  better 
for  them  now  that  the  war's  over?" 

The  question,  with  its  implied  accusation,  sank  deep 
into  Chalmers'  mind.  It  was  not  asked  in  bitterness; 
there  was  no  intention  of  accusation  in  it.  It  was 
simply  the  wistful  appeal  of  the  under-dog,  to  whom 
the  world  had  been  uniformly  unkind. 

Chalmers  looked  at  Baldy  with  a  new  comprehen- 
sion, and  tried  to  realise  his  character  and  history. 


THE  UNDER-DOG  243 

It  seemed  a  thing  beautiful  and  almost  miraculous 
that  under  circumstances  so  hostile  he  had  maintained 
a  courageous  temper,  that  he  had  remained  sweet- 
natured  and  genial  and  unselfish.  He  had  made  no 
exorbitant  demand  upon  the  world,  and  how  cheer- 
fully he  had  received  the  little  that  was  given!  And 
he  was  not  without  abilities,  too.  He  had  a  mind 
that  was  shrewd,  bold,  and,  within  the  narrow  limits 
set  for  it,  clear-sighted.  He  was  not  wholly  illiter- 
ate. He  had  picked  up  in  early  life,  probably  in  the 
Barnardo  Homes,  a  confused  idea  of  the  value  of 
books;  he  read  Kipling's  tales  with  interest,  delighted 
in  the  poetry  of  Robert  Service,  and  carried  with  him. 
a  tattered  copy  of  Burns'  poems,  although  he  made 
a  sad  hash  of  the  Scots  dialect,  much  of  which  was 
unintelligible  to  him.  A  vision  came  to  Chalmers  of 
Baldy  reading  Burns  with  intent  eyes  by  the  fire  of 
lumber  camps,  stimulated  by  the  manly  intelligence 
and  robust  independence  of  the  inspired  ploughman, 
who  has  spoken  for  the  poor  and  the  oppressed  in 
ringing  words  which  no  other  poet  has  ever  used.  By 
the  camp-fires  in  France  Chalmers  had  often  seen  him 
draw  the  tattered  leather-bound  copy  of  Burns  from 
his  soiled  tunic,  and  read  with  manifest  delight  the 
poems  that  spoke  so  sweetly  of  hearth-side  affections 
and  passionate  love  which  he  had  never  known.  And, 
remembering  these  things,  Chalmers  was  pierced  with 
a  poignant  sense  of  the  unjust  inequalities  of  human 
life.  If  he  had  been  born  in  the  Mint  would  he  have 
made  as  much  of  his  life  as  Baldy  had?  If  Baldy 
had  been  born  in  America  and  educated  at  Yale, 


244  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

would  not  he  have  profited  by  his  opportunity  in  a 
degree  at  least  equal  to  that  attained  by  men  like 
Chalmers  ? 

Judged  and  measured  from  this  point  of  view, 
Chalmers  realised  that  this  child  of  a  London  slum 
appeared  at  all  points  superior  to  himself.  He  had 
fought  a  harder  battle  with  poorer  weapons.  He  had 
faced  life  almost  unarmed,  and  that  he  had  survived 
at  all  was  marvellous. 

Was  the  world  going  to  be  any  better,  any  kinder 
or  juster  to  the  under-dog,  now  that  the  war  was  over? 

There  were  not  many  signs  that  pointed  that  way,  a 
great  many  that  pointed  in  an  opposite  direction. 
One  thing  that  he  saw  quite  plainly,  as  he  considered 
the  history  of  Baldy,  was  that  the  old  system  of  social 
injustice  was  doomed.  To  permit  the  Mint,  and 
places  like  the  Mint,  where  neglected  human  misery 
festered  into  crime,  and  to  set  up  against  it,  as  the 
sole  counteracting  force,  Barnardo's  Homes,  was  an 
absurdity,  only  made  tolerable  by  its  good  intention. 
Injustice  tempered  by  philanthropy  was  merely  to 
anoint  with  a  narcotic  balm  a  wound  that  needed 
surgery.  And  the  whole  future  of  civilisation  lay  in 
the  answer  to  the  question  whether  the  world  was  at 
last  prepared  to  organise  society  upon  a  base  of  equal 
justice  which  made  philanthropy  unnecessary. 

"The  world's  not  been  very  kind  to  you,  Baldy, 
has  it?"  he  said. 

"O,  I'm  not  complainin',"  was  the  answer.  "IVq 
managed  to  get  along  better  than  some.  But  there's 
a  good  many  as  is  complainin'.  I  used  to  hear  'em 


THE  UNDER-DOG  245 

talkin'  in  the  trenches,  and  I've  heard  lots  of  the 
Yanks  talk  since  I  been  in  New  York." 

"What  do  they  say,  Baldy?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  can  put  it  just  right,  but 
they've  got  notions.  They  don't  intend  to  go  back 
to  what  they  was  before  the  war.  They  don't  see 
why  the  rich  folk  should  be  the  only  kind  of  folk  that 
get  a  good  time.  There  was  a  chap  with  one  leg  I 
saw  one  day  going  to  cross  Fifth  Avenue,  when  along 
come  a  big  limousine  with  a  fat  Jew  in  it,  and  nearly 
ran  him  down.  That  Jew  didn't  care — he  was  mut- 
tering to  himself,  angry-like;  he  looked  like  one  of 
these  'ere  profiteers.  The  soldier  jumped  back  on  the 
kerb  with  his  crutches  and  his  one  leg,  an'  I  know 
by  the  look  on  his  face  what  he  was  thinking.  He 
was  sayin'  to  himself,  'That  swine  has  made  money 
by  the  war,  an'  I've  lost  my  leg  by  it;  by  rights  I 
ought  to  be  ridin'  in  the  limousine,  and  he  ought  to  be 
standin'  in  the  gutter.'  That's  how  lots  of  men  feel. 
An'  some  day  they'll  get  angry,  and  then  they'll  want 
to  take  what  they  think  they  ought  to  have,  an'  they'll 
take  it,  too." 

"Is 'that  how  you  feel,  Baldy?" 

"I  won't  say  I  haven't  felt  it,  sir.  But  I'm  not 
agreein'  with  that  kind  of  talk.  All  I'm  askin'  is  a 
square  deal." 

"And  what  would  you  call  a  square  deal?" 

"Just  the  chance  to  live  decent,  an'  earn  enough 
money  to  have  a  little  of  what  the  rich  have  too 
much  of." 

"That's  not  asking  much." 


246  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"No,  it  ain't,  but  sometimes  I  think  it's  a  sight  more 
than  we're  likely  to  get." 

He  sat  up  very  straight  as  he  spoke,  and  into  his 
humorous  and  kindly  blue  eyes  there  came  a  flash  of 
fanaticism. 

"I've  starved,  an'  lived  hard,  an'  done  my  bit,  an' 
there's  those  who've  suffered  a  lot  more  than  I've 
done.  They  went  to  the  war  glad  and  cheerful,  and 
were  fed  up  with  all  kind  of  tosh  about  savin'  the 
world  for  democracy.  What  they  want  to  know  now 
is,  what  is  this  blessed  world  they've  saved  going  to 
do  for  them  ?  They  ain't  goin'  back  to  their  old  jobs, 
don't  you  think  it,  sir.  They  ain't  goin'  to  work  in 
mines  and  factories  to  give  rich  swine  the  chance  of 
riding  in  limousines.  They  ain't  goin'  to  be  thank- 
ful for  crusts,  when  they  see  folk  who  didn't  suffer 
by  the  war,  but  p'raps  made  money  out  of  it,  gorgin' 
themselves  on  rich  food  and  wine.  They  know 
they're  strong  enough,  if  they  act  together,  to  get  any- 
thing they  want.  The  under-dog's  top-dog  now,  an* 
they  ain't  ever  goin'  to  be  under-dogs  again.  Beggin' 
your  pardon,  sir,  that's  what  men  are  sayin',  and  'tis 
only  right  you  should  know  it." 

The  flash  of  fanaticism  died  out  of  his  eyes  as 
rapidly  as  it  came,  and  he  said  with  a  timid  air  of 
deprecation,  "I  hadn't  ought  to  have  said  these  things 
to  you,  sir,  and  I  deserve  to  be  well  strafed  for  sayin' 
them." 

"Do  you  observe,  Baldy,  that  I'm  not  wearing  my 
uniform?"  said  Chalmers.  "We're  neither  of  us  in 
the  army  now,  and  there's  no  more  'strafing.'  We're 


THE  UNDER-DOG  247 

just  two  men  with  some  hard  problems  to  solve,  and 
I'm  not  thinking  of  you  as  my  batman,  but  as  my 
friend." 

"I'm  your  servant,  just  the  same,  an*  in  spite  of 
what  I've  said,  I've  no  wish  to  be  anything  else,  sir." 

And  into  those  eyes,  which  a  moment  before  had 
blazed  so  indignantly,  came  a  softness,  that  was  not 
far  removed  from  tears. 

"You're  a  better  man  than  I  am,  Gunga  Dinn," 
quoted  Chalmers  with  a  smile. 

"That's  Kipling,  isn't  it?"  said  Baldy  with  a  nod 
of  appreciation. 

"Yes,  it's  Kipling.  It's  also,  if  I  mistake  not, 
God's  verdict  on  the  humble." 

But  that  sentiment  was  a  little  too  abstruse  for 
Baldy,  whose  religious  education  consisted  only  of  re- 
mote memories  of  hymns  sung  on  Sundays  in  the 
little  chapel  of  the  Barnardo  Homes.  He  rose  and 
pushed  together  the  embers  of  the  dying  fire.  He 
cleared  the  table  of  its  glasses,  cigar-ashes,  and  scat- 
tered books.  He  was  once  more  the  faithful  batman, 
and  he  wondered  as  he  drew  the  curtains  over  the 
window  against  which  the  summer  rain  beat,  how  he 
had  dared  to  talk  to  his  master  as  he  had. 


IV 

Through  the  brief  summer  night,  as  Chalmers  lay 
sleepless,  he  revolved  in  his  mind  this  conversation 
with  Baldy,  until  it  became  an  obsession,  until  it  en- 


248  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

larged  itself  into  a  vision  of  profound  and  significant 
world-processes. 

There  came  back  to  him  vividly  that  vision  which 
he  had  had  long  before  beside  the  sea  of  the  shining 
helmets  of  an  army,  horsemen  and  far-flung  banners — 
the  host  of  the  martyrs,  the  men  of  Mons  and  the 
Marne,  the  trodden  flesh  of  Flanders'  fields  reassem- 
bled, filing  past  in  solemn  pride,  carrying  their  mutila- 
tions like  crimson  badges,  like  sacrificial  decorations, 
bestowed  upon  them  by  the  hand  of  God.  And  he 
remembered  the  message  that  came  to  him  from  those 
silent  lips — "We  are  the  dead,  but  the  cause  for  which 
we  died  is  not  yet  won.  Not  until  justice  reigns 
throughout  the  earth  will  that  cause  be  won.  Justice 
for  the  humblest  toiler  as  well  as  for  the  humblest 
nation " 

He  drew  up  the  blind ;  the  rain-clouds  had  cleared, 
a  sky  of  moon-washed  pearl  rimmed  the  level  waters, 
and  again  from  the  sea  he  saw  a  host  of  men  emerg- 
ing, a  multitude  that  climbed  endlessly  over  the  rim 
of  the  horizon.  They  marched  without  elation,  with 
no  cry  of  trumpets  to  quicken  their  steps,  with  no 
flash  of  arms,  and  the  banners  they  carried  were  dark 
and  drooping.  They  marched  patiently,  dejectedly, 
with  bowed  heads  and  heavy  feet,  and  their  numbers 
were  beyond  counting.  Their  wounds  were  not  the 
wounds  of  battle,  exhibited  proudly  as  decorations; 
they  were  the  scars  of  life-long  drudgery,  the  Lazarus- 
sores  of  long  neglect,  the  calloused  mutilations  of  in- 
justice. For  he  knew  who  they  were,  the  army  of 


THE  UNDER-DOG  249 

the  under-dogs — men,  like  Baldy,  to  whom  life  had 
given  no  chance. 

Strange  that  he  had  lived  all  his  years,  and  had 
never  thought  of  these!  Stranger  still  that  he  had 
received  as  gospel  the  lying  fiction  that  all  men  were 
created  equal,  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among 
which  were  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness! 
What  equality  was  possible  between  a  life  started  in 
the  purlieus  of  the  Mint  and  a  life  like  his  own,  which 
had  inherited  comfort  and  learning  and  all  the  finest 
impulses  and  restraints  of  civilisation  ?  Had  he  once, 
in  all  those  years,  got  a  true  vision  of  the  dread  foun- 
dations on  which  society  was  built?  Had  he  ever 
taken  the  trouble  to  enquire  why  a  narrow  section  of 
society  should  possess  all  the  best  in  life,  and  the  vast 
majority  of  human  creatures  should  stand  without, 
like  beggars  who  see  through  gilded  gates  a  Paradise 
which  they  may  not  enter?  Yet  he  had  assumed,  as 
all  his  kind  assumed,  that  there  was  some  divine  sanc- 
tion for  this  disparity.  It  was  the  way  the  world 
was  made.  There  were  top-dogs  and  under-dogs,  and 
it  was  not  in  the  nature  of  the  top-dog  to  enquire  very 
closely  into  the  feelings  of  the  under-dog.  And  now, 
it  would  seem,  the  under-dog  had  begun  to  dispute 
the  rights  of  the  top-dog;  he  was  no  longer  patient 
and  passive;  he  was  no  longer  disposed  to  accept  as 
inevitable  and  sacrosanct  a  social  disparity  which 
gave  everything  to  the  few  and  nothing  to  the  many. 

Baldy  had  taught  him  that.  In  a  single  hour  of 
human  conversation  he  had  learned  from  Baldy  more 
of  the  meaning  of  life  than  all  his  preceptors  had 


250  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

taught  him.  And  he  knew  why ;  for  the  first  time  he 
had  talked  with  Baldy  as  a  man  and  not  as  a  servant. 
He  had  thrown  down  the  artificial  barriers  which 
separated  them,  to  discover  in  Baldy  a  human  soul, 
the  equal  of  his  own.  The  equal?  Rather  the  supe- 
rior, as  he  himself  had  acknowledged,  when  his  in- 
stinctive tribute  had  been,  "You're  a  better  man  than 
I  am,  Gunga  Dinn." 

That  a  man  should  be  an  under-dog  through  natural 
incompetence,  through  vice  or  weakness,  was  intel- 
ligible. Evolution  insisted  on  that.  But  it  was  not 
intelligible  and  it  was  not  fair  that  a  man  should 
be  an  under-dog  through  the  artificial  pressure  of 
an  unjust  strength,  selfishly  exerted.  Evolution  in- 
sisted on  the  exact  contrary,  when  it  taught  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  To  prevent  the  survival  of 
the  fit  by  the  downward  pressure  of  a  social  and 
exclusive  selfish  system  was  to  resist  evolution,  and, 
in  so  far  as  evolution  was  a  real  principle  of  human 
life,  to  defy  and  repudiate  it. 

A  saying  of  Cald well's  rang  through  his  mind  with 
reverberating  emphasis — "Bolshevism  is  exaspera- 
tion at  injustice.  It  is  the  robbed  becoming  the 
robbers." 

He  could  accept  no  brief  for  Bolshevism.  It  was 
an  ugly  and  terrible  thing.  It  was  a  distorted  Cali- 
ban, rising  out  of  the  primeval  slime,  to  mock  with 
brutal  gibes  and  wreck  with  bloody  hands  all  the  fair 
structure  of  civilisation  which  man  had  reared  by  how 
many  thousand  years  of  agonising  effort.  But  surely 
a  wise  man  would  not  be  content  with  merely  de- 


THE  UNDER-DOG  251 

nouncing  and  opposing  it;  he  would  at  least  enquire 
into  the  causes  of  so  prodigious  an  effect.  Was  not 
Caldwell  right  when  he  had  declared  that  every  man 
was  content  with  society  as  long  as  he  believed  that 
society  gave  him  a  fair  deal;  but  that  the  moment  he 
believed  that  he  was  unfairly  treated  he  would  treat 
society  unfairly;  and,  being  denied  what  was  justly 
his,  would  seize  on  that  to  which  he  had  no  claim? 
Was  not  that  precisely  what  men  needed  to  see,  and 
what  no  man  appeared  capable  of  seeing? 

And  to  what  disastrous  folly  was  this  unwillingness 
to  see  leading  mankind! 

What  was  the  use  of  a  Peace  Conference  which 
settled  all  kinds  of  questions,  but  tacitly  ignored 
Russia?  It  was  like  taking  out  insurances  for  one's 
property,  while  a  great  conflagration  raged,  without 
the  least  effort  to  put  out  the  fire !  Did  the  statesmen 
at  the  Peace  Conference  forget  that  Russia  repre- 
sented one-sixth  of  the  globe  and  that  it  was  aflame 
from  end  to  end?  Did  they  suppose  that  they  could 
go  about  the  boasted  business  of  reconstructing  the 
world,  by  making  their  own  frontiers  safe,  while  one- 
sixth  of  the  world  was  burning  ?  What  folly !  What 
stupendous  selfishness !  And  yet  that  seemed  the  real 
position  of  affairs.  No  one  was  wise  enough  to  in- 
sist that  until  Russia  was  stabilised,  no  world-peace 
was  possible;  and  the  very  nations  that  had  done  so 
much  to  crush  a  world-peril  were  unwilling  to  lift  a 
hand  to  curb  or  destroy  a  much  vaster  world-peril. 

Quite  clearly  he  saw  now  what  the  real  problem  of 
the  future  was — it  was  the  problem  of  the  under-dog. 


252  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

Until  that  problem  was  solved  the  promise  of  world- 
peace  was  futile.  And  it  must  be  solved  where  it 
had  been  stated  in  the  most  perilous  terms — Russia. 
Was  there  anything  he  could  do  toward  such  an  end  ? 
He  had  once  been  offered  a  commission  in  the  little 
Canadian  force  which  had  been  dispatched  to  Siberia. 
One  of  his  best  friends  was  there,  a  certain  Major 
Clyde,  who  had  fought  with  him  at  Vimy  Ridge.  He 
had  begged  Chalmers  to  join  him;  but  months  had 
elapsed,  and  no  word  had  come  from  him.  In  the 
vast  silence  of  the  steppes  Clyde  and  his  artillery 
brigade  had  been  swallowed  up  like  a  drop  in  the 
ocean. 

Should  he  accept  this  almost  forgotten  opportunity 
of  service?  It  would  settle  many  things  for  him. 
It  would  put  an  end  to  the  torture  of  thinking,  and 
give  him  something  positive  to  do.  It  would  restore 
him  to  t&e  clean,  austere,  self-respecting  life  of  the 
soldier  in  the  field.  But  an  inner  voice  told  him  that 
Russia  would  not  be  saved  by  armed  interference.  It 
was  the  teacher  rather  than  the  soldier  that  Russia 
needed.  It  was  the  teaching  of  men  like  Lenine  and 
Trotsky  which  had  ruined  Russia.  It  must  be 
through  a  truer  teaching  of  liberty,  not  alone  the 
privilege  but  the  obligations  of  liberty,  that  Russia 
must  be  saved.  If  a  spiteful  anarchist,  who  had 
learned  hatred  of  democracy  in  the  squalid  tenement 
houses  of  New  York,  could  infect  the  soul  of  Russia 
so  fatally,  could  not  others,  who  knew  the  real  value 
and  meaning  of  democracy  touch  that  soul  also,  and 
touch  it  to  finer  issues? 


THE  UNDER-DOG  253 

His  heart  glowed  a  little  at  the  thought ;  but  he  was 
too  tired  in  mind  to  grasp  it  with  energy. 

The  dawn  was  breaking.  Over  the  quiet  sea  spread 
a  pearly  wash  of  light,  and  behind  it  shone  the  broad 
golden  suffusion  of  the  advancing  day. 

He  knew  that  sleep  was  now  impossible,  and,  in- 
deed, the  desire  for  sleep  had  left  him.  He  went  out 
into  the  fresh  air,  and  began  to  walk  vigorously 
toward  the  sea.  The  long  level  stretch  of  sands  al- 
lured him,  and  he  strolled  on  toward  Hampton.  In 
the  roped-off  space  of  quiet  sea  a  few  early  bathers 
were  swimming.  He  sat  down,  idly  watching  them. 
Presently  his  attention  was  attracted  by  one  of  them, 
a  woman,  who  swam  with  singular  grace  far  out  to 
sea,  and  at  last  turned  back  to  shore  with  a  long  easy 
breast-stroke.  As  she  neared  the  shore,  and  rose 
upon  a  green  wave,  the  full  sun  caught  her,  and  lit  up 
a  golden  strand  of  hair  which  had  escaped  from  her 
bathing-cap.  He  looked  more  eagerly,  and  then  rec- 
ognition came  to  him.  It  was  beyond  doubt  Claire 
Gunnison.  For  the  third  time  the  line  of  her  life  had 
intersected  his. 


IX 

HEARTS'  HAVEN 


SHE  came  out  of  the  sea,  fresh  and  rosy  as  an 
Aphrodite,  new-risen  from  the  foam.  The  salt-drops, 
falling  from  her  bare  arms,  flashed  like  diamonds  in 
the  sun.  She  stood  gazing  sea-ward  into  the  heart 
of  that  increasing  splendour,  which  seemed  to  invest 
her  with  a  prismatic  halo,  and  for  the  first  time  Chal- 
mers realised  her  physical  beauty,  the  exquisite  lines 
and  graceful  poise  of  her  supple  figure.  Then  she 
turned  quietly  to  the  bath-house,  and  an  aspect  of  de- 
sertion fell  upon  the  shore  and  sea. 

From  the  little  hollow  of  the  sand-dunes  where  he 
was  standing,  Chalmers  moved  to  the  road  which  he 
knew  she  must  take,  and  waited  for  her.  He  would 
have  liked  to  arrange  his  thoughts,  to  categorise  the 
emotions  she  aroused,  but  his  emotions  ran  too  swiftly 
for  him.  In  the  end  he  yielded  to  them,  as  a  swim- 
mer yields  to  a  strong  uplifting  tide.  He  found  a 
new  happiness  in  this  passivity.  At  the  heart  of  this 
strange  happiness  lay  the  sense  of  submission  to  a 
force  stronger  than  that  of  the  individual  will.  In 
this  unexpected  meeting  he  recognised  the  compulsion 

254 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  255 

of  converging  destinies;  the  Powers  of  life  and  death, 
who  work  behind  the  veils  of  Time,  were  busy  with 
him.  He  yielded  to  their  pressure  as  clay  in  the 
hands  of  a  potter,  and  he  found  a  peace  in  yielding. 

She  came  at  last.  He  moved  out  into  the  middle 
of  the  sandy  road,  and  stood  waiting  for  her.  Velvet- 
backed  swallows  flashed  and  twittered  in  the  marshes, 
a  gust  of  air,  fragrant  with  wild  honeysuckle,  blew 
across  the  road,  the  measured  diapason  of  the  sea 
beat  upon  the  shore.  To  his  dying  day  he  knew  that 
he  would  associate  these  things  with  Claire.  They 
would  be  the  symbols  of  her  essential  interpretation. 
The  Claire  he  was  now  to  meet  was  the  natural 
woman,  stripped  of  all  disguise — the  woman  who 
came  up  out  of  the  sea  with  the  candid  beauty  of  a 
human  goddess. 

She  stood  before  him,  startled ;  he  came  toward  her 
with  outstretched  hands. 

"You?"  she  said. 

"I  was  waiting  for  you,"  he  replied. 

No  further  explanation  seemed  necessary.  She 
laid  her  cool  hand  in  his,  and  so  they  walked  on  side 
by  side  for  a  few  yards.  Then  she  gently  withdrew 
her  hand,  and  they  went  on  in  silence.  They  felt 
and  acted  as  though  their  tryst  were  planned.  It 
seemed  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  they 
should  be  together  in  this  morning  loneliness  beside 
the  sea. 

A  few  yards  along  the  road  a  high-shouldered 
wooden  bridge  crossed  a  stream,  fringed  deeply  with 
tall  reeds,  among  which  the  swallows  darted.  They 


256  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

poised  themselves  delicately  on  the  swaying  reeds, 
skimmed  in  swift  flight  the  surface  of  the  water, 
flashed  to  and  fro,  making  intricate  patterns  on  the 
blue  air,  in  an  access  of  glad  and  free  life.  A  path 
ran  beside  the  water;  a  boat  swayed  at  its  moorings; 
the  tide,  running  out,  talked  in  a  low  gurgling  whis- 
per. Instinctively  they  turned  from  the  bright  sandy 
road  into  this  reed-banked  path.  They  walked  on 
slowly  till  they  reached  a  deserted  hut,  on  whose  roof 
the  fishermen's  nets  were  drying.  There  was  no 
sound  but  the  whisper  of  the  water  in  the  reeds.  The 
morning  breeze  had  not  begun  to  blow ;  the  height  of 
the  firmament  was  poised  and  motionless,  without  the 
least  cloud,  and  an  immense  silence  filled  the  world. 

Chalmers  was  the  first  to  speak. 

"After  Yale,  do  you  remember,  I  promised  to  see 
you  in  New  York?  Did  you  wonder  why  I  didn't 
come  ?" 

"I  knew  the  reason.     I  understood." 

"But  I  did  come  after  all.  I  walked  up  and  down 
before  your  house.  There  was  a  light  in  the  second- 
floor  window,  and  I  knew  you  were  there." 

"And  then?" 

"I  left  New  York  the  next  day.  I  was  too  tired 
to  meet  anyone,  even  you,  Claire.  Do  you  ever  feel 
a  great  need  for  silence?  That's  how  I  felt  And 
so  I  came  here." 

"I  came  for  the  same  reason." 

She  plucked  a  marsh  flower,  and  began  to  pull  it 
to  pieces  with  restless  fingers.  Her  face  was  turned 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  237 

away  from  him.  Presently  she  said,  "But  tHat  wasn't 
the  only  reason,  was  it?" 

"No,"  he  said.     "There  was  another." 

"Were  you  afraid  to  meet  me?  Was  that  the 
reason?" 

"Yes,  I  was  afraid.  I  was  afraid  of  your  sym- 
pathy. When  a  man  is  very  lonely  he  sometimes  mis- 
takes sympathy  for  love.  He  brings  a  woman  his 
weakness ;  she  pities  him,  and  her  pity  is  so  sweet  that 
he  accepts  it  as  a  substitute  for  love.  I  did  not  wish 
that  to  happen." 

She  meditated  that  reply,  in  silence  for  some 
minutes. 

"I  also  was  afraid,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice.  "I 
was  afraid  of  myself." 

He  looked  at  her  eagerly,  half -surmising  what  she 
meant;  but  a  sure  instinct  warned  him  against  asking 
any  question.  He  had  a  sense  that  their  two  lives 
were  trembling  toward  each  other  like  two  drops  of 
dew  that  touch  and  mingle.  If  he  was  too  precipi- 
tate, they  might  fall  to  the  ground  instead  of  min- 
gling. They  were  both  at  the  mercy  of  some  other 
force  that  bent  them  toward  one  another. 

"I  am  going  to  make  a  confession,"  she  said  with 
sudden  energy.  "Please  don't  look  at  me,  or  I  can't 
make  it.  Let  me  feel  that  I  am  talking  to  myself, 
and  that  you  are  listening  without  my  knowledge." 

She  turned  her  back  to  him,  and  looked  out  across 
the  green  marshes  to  the  distant  blue  of  the  sea,  which 
lay  like  a  bit  of  blue  glass  in  a  narrow,  gap  of  the 
sand  dunes. 


258  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Ever  since  I  can  recollect,  the  strongest  feeling  I 
have  had  has  been  a  passion  for  freedom.  Men  don't 
feel  that  passion  in  the  same  way  because  they  have 
freedom.  They  can  do  pretty  much  as  they  like; 
but  a  woman  is  never  free.  She  must  dress  in  a  cer- 
tain way,  behave  in  a  certain  way,  toe  the  line  of 
convention  in  all  she  says  and  does.  She  may  resent 
it  bitterly,  but  she  can't  help  herself.  She's  born  into 
servitude,  and  she  can't  escape  except  at  the  price  of 
social  disaster.  I  wanted  to  escape. 

"A  man  doesn't  understand  the  difficulty  a  woman 
has  in  escaping  from  bondage.  She  is  so  absolutely 
dependent.  She  has,  in  most  cases,  no  money  of  her 
own.  She  is  subject  to  the  tyranny  of  virtue.  I 
don't  mean  she  wants  to  be  vicious;  but  she  is  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  notions  of  virtue  cherished  by  her 
elders,  for  whom  virtue  is  a  set  of  cold  negations. 
One  of  the  first  rules  of  woman's  virtue  is  that  she 
must  sit  still  till  some  man  may  chance  to  cast  on 
her  a  favouring  glance.  She  mustn't  betray  a  desire, 
a  preference.  She  must  pass  her  life  waiting  for  the 
fairy  prince  to  break  the  magic  spell  that  binds  her, 
and  if  he  doesn't  come  she  must  perish  in  captivity. 

"I  escaped  to  London  in  1912.  I  joined  the  mili- 
tant suffragettes,  and  for  a  time  was  wildly  happy. 
After  a  time  I  came  to  see  that  for  a  woman  to  be 
truly  free  meant  much  more  than  getting  a  vote. 
Political  equality  was  one  thing;  sex  equality  quite 
another.  I  wanted  a  bigger  thing  than  a  vote:  I 
wanted  freedom  to  do  as  I  liked  with  my  own  life. 
I  never  meant  to  use  my  freedom  wrongly,  but  I 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  259 

wanted  it.  I  wanted  to  feel  that  it  was  really  my 
own,  however  I  might  choose  to  use  it. 

"Then  came  the  war  and  brought  me  real  freedom. 
Woman  for  the  first  time  stood  on  a  true  equality  with 
man.  She  did  a  man's  work,  took  a  man's  wage,  and 
had  a  man's  right  to  dispose  of  herself  as  she  pleased. 
Personal  heroism  was  the  one  thing  required.  If  a 
woman  could  survive  that  test,  no  other  test  was  re- 
quired of  her.  And  this  meant,  in  relation  to  man" — 
her  voice  sank  into  a  whisper — "this  meant  that 
woman  recovered  a  right  which  the  great  pagans  gave 
to  woman,  but  which  Christianity  took  from  her,  the 
right  to  choose  a  man  instead  of  waiting  to  be 
chosen." 

He  laid  his  hand  upon  her  shoulders,  which  shud- 
dered at  his  touch. 

"I  understand,  dear,"  he  said  softly. 

"I  want  you  to  understand — to  understand  just  the 
kind  of  woman  I  am." 

She  turned  to  him  with  a  flushed  face  and  down- 
cast eyes. 

"I  offered  myself  to  you,"  she  said.  "Believe  me,  I 
never  offered  myself  to  anyone  else.  I  did  it  because 
I  loved  you." 

He  drew  her  gently  to  himself,  and  she  hid  her 
face  against  his  bosom. 

"O,  I  am  ashamed,"  she  whispered.  "I  am  so 
bitterly  ashamed.  All  my  fine  new  philosophy  is  shat- 
tered into  little  bits.  And  now  I  have  told  you  every- 
thing, and  we  must  part." 

"Must  we?"  he  said. 


260  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

She  lay  very  still  against  his  shoulder. 

"Must  we?"  he  repeated.  "Claire,  dear,  look  up 
into  my  face.  You've  told  me  a  great  deal  about 
yourself,  but  there's  one  thing  you  haven't  said. 
There's  a  question  you  haven't  asked  me — you,  who've 
made  so  strong  a  claim  to  freedom — you  haven't 
asked  me  if  I  love  you." 

"Do  you  ?"  she  whispered. 

"With  all  my  heart,  dear." 

"Then  I  can  be  content  to  lose  you.  For  we  must 
part." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  cried  half  angrily. 

He  seized  her,  forcing  her  to  stand  before  him, 
her  flushed  face  hidden  in  her  hands. 

"What  sort  of  man  do  you  think  I  am?"  he  con- 
tinued. "Do  you  think  I'm  incapable  of  understand- 
ing your  magnanimity?  What  do  I  care  for  your 
philosophy?  You've  said  it's  shattered  into  bits. 
Everything  that  went  with  it  is  shattered,  too!  Do 
you  suppose  I'm  mean  enough  to  hold  it  against  you 
that  you  asked  for  my  love  before  I  asked  for  yours? 
I  don't  care  whether  you've  chosen  me  or  I've  chosen 
you.  If  you  were  the  first  to  choose  it's  because  your 
nature  is  the  more  generous,  and  mine  the  meaner. 
Isn't  it  enough  that  you  and  I  are  here — that  for  the 
third  time  you've  come  into  my  life,  unexpectedly,  be- 
cause we  had  to  meet,  because  we  couldn't  help  com- 
ing together?  You  taught  me  that  faith.  It's  mine 
now,  and  I  don't  intend  to  part  with  it — or  you. 
You're  mine,  and  I  claim  you." 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  261 

"But  if  I'm  not  worthy  ?  Perhaps  you  don't  think 
me  unworthy  now,  but  you  may  come  to  think  it" 

He  interrupted  her. 

"There's  no  worthiness  or  unworthiness  in  love," 
he  said.  "You  yourself  once  said  that  the  essence  of 
love  was  giving,  not  bargaining.  If  you  came  to  me 
with  a  thousand  stains  upon  you,  I  should  love  you 
just  the  same.  But  you  don't — you're  coming  to  me 
with  a  purity  that  no  philosophy  has  been  able  to 
smirch.  Haven't  you  come  to  me  fresh  from  the 
sea?  You're  lustrated,  the  freshness  of  the  sea  is  on 
you.  That's  a  symbol.  And  the  dawn's  another 
symbol.  The  whole  world's  made  new  for  us  in  this 
hour." 

From  behind  the  fingers  that  concealed  her  face 
came  a  low  ripple  of  laughter,  that  laughter  which  he 
had  once  thought  like  a  peal  of  silver  bells. 

"So  it  seems  I'm  a  conventional  woman  after  all," 
she  said.  "You've  mastered  me,  and  I'm  glad  to  be 
mastered." 

"You'll  find  me  a  kind  master,"  he  replied  with 
answering  laughter. 

She  drew  slowly  towards  him,  and  put  her  arms 
round  his  neck.  Her  loosened  hair,  damp  with  the 
salt  of  the  sea,  fell  across  his  face. 

The  solitary  marshes  lay  round  them,  threaded  with 
blue  watercourses.  The  stillness  was  so  great  it 
seemed  as  though  all  the  life  of  nature  had  been  sus- 
pended, intent  on  a  sacramental  act.  Suddenly  a 
fresh  breeze  began  to  blow  from  the  sea.  The  sacra- 
ment was  complete;  from  its  beatific  moment  they 


262  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

passed,  like  awed  worshippers,  to  the  tasks  and  bur- 
den of  the  ordinary  day. 

They  walked  on  the  hard  sea  beach,  till  they  came 
to  the  road  that  led  to  the  Three  Cups. 

"Couldn't  we  breakfast  together?"  he  suggested 
with  boyish  eagerness. 

"There's  the  Presbyterian  aunt  to  be  considered," 
she  replied  with  a  smile. 

"We  can  'phone  her.     Where  are  you  staying?" 

"At  the  Hampton  Inn.  But  my  aunt,  as  I  once  told 
you,  is  a  very  formidable  person,  with  strict  notions 
as  to  propriety  in  woman.  I'm  afraid  she  would  be 
shocked  if  I  told  her — well,  all  that  happened  in  the 
last  hour." 

"She'd  be  more  shocked  if  I  suddenly  appeared  at 
the  Hampton  Inn  with  you.  Tell  her  you've  met  a 
friend  from  New  York,  and  will  explain  later." 

"You  make  me  feel  just  as  I  did  when  I  once  played 
truant  as  a  little  girl." 

"Why  not?  There's  nothing  more  delightful  than 
the  unexpected.  And,  besides,  I  do  really  want  you 
to  see  my  house." 

She  nodded  a  smiling  assent  and  walked  on. 

"What  a  charming  place,"  she  said,  as  they  passed 
through  the  white  gate  under  the  old  elms.  "I  didn't 
know  there  was  such  a  place  so  near  to  Hampton. 
How  did  you  find  it?" 

"I  used  to  come  here  as  a  boy.  I've  known  it  all 
my  life." 

"Fortunate  you,"  she  cried.     "It  looks  like  a  real 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  263 

home.  I've  never  had  a  real  home.  I've  only  lived 
in  houses,  and  other  people's  houses  at  that." 

She  explored  the  old  quaint  rooms  with  delighted 
curiosity.  The  large  three-windowed  room  with  the 
landscape  paper  especially  pleased  her.  But  her  eyes 
rested  with  the  greatest  pleasure  on  the  wide  red-tiled 
hearth,  with  its  hanging  pots,  and  the  brick-floored 
room  with  its  old  oaken  benches. 

An  oaken  gate-table  stood  beside  the  hearth.  Baldy 
appeared  with  coffee  and  fresh  biscuits,  assiduous  and 
smiling,  betraying  no  sign  of  surprise  at  the  unex- 
pected visitor.  They  sat  long  over  the  simple  meal. 
It  gave  them  a  thrilling  sense  of  intimacy  to  break 
bread  together. 

"What  a  house  for  a  writer,"  she  exclaimed. 
"How  happy  a  man  could  be  here  who  wanted  to 
think  and  write.  In  New  York  you  can't  hear  your- 
self think." 

"Unfortunately  I'm  not  a  writer.     I  wish  I  were." 

"Did  you  never  try  to  write?" 

"O,  I  sent  things  to  the  Yale  magazine  once  or 
twice.  But  I  soon  found  out  that  a  dozen  other  fel- 
lows could  write  better  than  I." 

J* 

"I  used  to  send  articles  to  a  suffragette  paper  in 
England,  but  I  made  the  same  discovery." 

It  seemed  a  new  bond  between  them  that  there  were 
things  neither  of  them  could  do.  They  were  uncon- 
sciously engaged  in  the  exploration  of  each  other's 
qualities.  There  was  a  sweet  novelty  in  the  act,  an 
enchantment  of  mutual  surprise. 

"What  did  you  write  about,  Claire?" 


264  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Woman's  freedom.  I  don't  remember  anything 
in  particular  except  a  very  hot  and  indignant  exposi- 
tion of  the  social  meanings  of  Olive  Schreiner's 
African  Farm.  That  was  the  book  which  moved  me 
more  than  any  other  in  those  days.  There  was  one 
passage  which  burned  itself  into  my  mind,  a  bitter 
passage  in  which  she  says  that  all  the  powers  of 
intellect  a  woman  may  possess  are  of  less  value  to 
her  in  the  battle  of  life  than  a  dimple  in  a  pretty  face. 
For  a  time  I  think  I  hated  beauty  in  woman." 

"You  don't  now?" 

"No.  I've  come  to  think  of  beauty  as  the  only 
divine  thing  in  human  life.  It's  the  only  thing  that 
proves  God  an  artist  and  not  a  mere  soulless  mechan- 
ician." 

"The  woman  who  arranged  this  house,  my  aunt 
Emily  Chailoner,  was  beautiful.  She  had  a  beautiful 
soul." 

"My  aunt  hasn't.  She  has  a  narrow  unlovely  soul. 
Of  course  she's  good  in  her  bitter  way,  but  she's  the 
sort  of  person  who  makes  you  hate  goodness  because 
she  makes  it  unattractive.  She  makes  it  so  repulsive 
that  you  want  to  try  badness  for  a  change.  I  wonder 
whether  we  know  what  we  are  talking  about  when 
we  divide  the  world  into  the  good  and  the  bad.  I've 
met  some  of  the  best  qualities  in  bad  people,  and  some 
of  the  worst  in  the  good." 

"Ah,  that's  something  the  war  has  taught  us,  isn't 
it?"  he  said. 

"I  often  think  so.  It's  done  more  to  teach  us  what 
beauty  is  than  anything  else  could  possibly  have  done. 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  265 

War's  the  ugliest  thing  in  the  world,  but  it's  the  most 
beautiful,  too;  it's  thronged  the  mind  with  the  mem- 
ory of  beautiful  souls." 

"But  you  and  I  are  going  to  forget  the  ugliness  and 
remember  only  the  beauty,  aren't  we,  dear?" 

"Are  we  ?"  she  said.  "I  don't  see  how.  You  can't 
have  light  without  shadow.  We  can't  even  see  light 
without  shadow.  Pure  light,  untempered  by  shadow, 
.blinds  and  kills  us." 

"Ah,  but  I've  had  so  much  shadow,"  he  replied. 
"Let  me  enjoy  my  little  space  of  light,  won't  you, 
dear?" 

"Yes,  I  was  ungenerous.  I'm  afraid  I  can't  help 
pursuing  an  idea,  when  I  should  be  much  wiser  in 
yielding  to  an  emotion.  For  to-day,  at  least,  let  us 
take  all  the  joy  God  sends  us.  O,  my  dear,  if  you 
only  knew  what  it  means  to  me  to  stop  thinking,  anc$ 
allow  myself  the  luxury  of  feeling." 

Their  hands  met,  and  he  drew  her  lips  to  his.  Then 
they  rose  from  the  table,  and  went  out  into  the  gar- 
den, hand  in  hand,  like  two  children. 

That  green  care-free  world,  where  the  wind  drove 
high  white  clouds  across  the  heavens,  like  white  sails 
on  a  blue  sea,  and  the  gulls  flashed  and  floated  in  an 
effortless  ecstasy  of  motion,  made  all  the  evil  of  the 
world  seem  the  impossible  invention  of  some  dull- 
hearted  madman.  The  eye,  released  from  brooding 
care,  did,  as  Claire  had  said,  realise  God  as  an  artist 
and  not  a  mere  mechanician. 

"I  believe  I'm  naturally  a  most  joyous  person,"  she 
confided  to  him,  as  though  she  had  just  discovered  it 


266  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"The  trouble  is  that  for  years  and  years  I've  let  my 
thoughts  turn  inward.  What  a  relief  and  bliss  it  is 
to  turn  them  outward." 

They  found  a  seat  in  the  little  rose-garden  that  lay 
behind  the  house,  and  sat  there,  exchanging  confi- 
dences. He  spoke  to  her  of  his  empty  boyhood,  she 
of  her  repressed  girlhood. 

"I  suppose  it  would  sound  very  dreadful,"  he  said, 
"if  I  confessed  that  I  was  almost  glad  when  the  war 
came,  but  I  was.  I  felt  that  it  was  the  first  chance 
I'd  ever  had  of  doing  something  that  was  really  great. 
I'd  always  dreamed  of  a  supreme  adventure,  but  never 
found  it.  I  wonder,  did  you  feel  in  that  way?" 

"I  probably  felt  it  more  keenly  than  you  because 
my  life  was  more  circumscribed." 

"I  believe  we're  all  adventurers  at  heart,  but  we 
don't  know  how  to  get  started." 

"But  when  we're  once  started  we  can't  stop,  can 
we?  We  realise  a  kind  of  degradation  in  security." 

"We  mustn't  let  ourselves  stop,  must  we,  Claire?" 

"No,  we  must  go  on  with  our  adventuring.  If  we 
don't  we  shall  lose  faith  in  each  other." 

The  memory  came  to  him  of  the  days  when  the  old 
house  was  an  inn,  and  he  pictured  to  her  the  sea-bat- 
tered fishermen  coming  out  of  the  night  to  find  brief 
solace  in  its  light  and  warmth. 

"They  were  adventurers,"  he  said.  "They  came 
here  for  a  little  while,  but  they  always  went  back  to 
their  venturing.  We're  rather  like  them,  I  think. 
We've  found  an  inn  of  rest,  but  it's  within  hearing 
of  the  sea,  and  the  sea  still  calls  us." 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  267 

"Of  course,"  she  assented.  "But  just  the  same,  it's 
a  good  thing  to  forget  the  sea  sometimes,  isn't  it? 
Those  old  fishermen  knew  how  to  enjoy  their  moment 
of  release  from  venturing.  Three  parts  of  the  wis- 
dom of  life  lies  in  enjoying  the  moment  and  forget- 
ting the  years.  This  is  our  moment:  let  us  make  the 
most  of  it." 

"Yes,  let  us  enjoy  it,"  he  said.  "We've  travelled  a 
long  way  to  find  it,  haven't  we?" 

"A  long  way,  and  a  hard  way,"  she  said  with  a  sigh. 
"My  dear,  do  you  know  that  you  know  very  little 
about  me?" 

"I  know  that  I  love  you,"  he  said  simply. 

"But  aren't  you  just  a  little  curious  about  me? 
There  are  some  things  about  me  I'd  like  you  to  know, 
but  I  can't  tell  them  unless  you  ask  me." 

"But  I  don't  ask.  I'm  content  not  to  ask.  I  give 
you  back  your  own  counsel — 'three  parts  of  the  wis- 
dom of  life  lies  in  enjoying  the  moment  and  forget- 
ting the  years.' ' 

She  smiled  at  that,  and  sat  silent  with  her  hand  in 
his. 

A  little  later  she  said,  "There's  one  thing  I  must  tell 
you,  even  though  you  don't  ask  me.  I  told  you  once, 
didn't  I,  that  I  was  engaged  to  be  married  to 
Major  Choate.  I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  loved  him. 
And  I'm  not  going  to  offer  the  common  excuse  that 
I  was  mistaken  in  my  feelings.  I  did  love  him.  Many 
women  loved  him;  he  was  the  sort  of  man  who  at- 
tracted women,  and  he  loved  many  women.  He  died 


268  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

in  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne.  The  mourning  I 
wore  when  you  first  met  me  was  for  him." 

"He  deserved  to  be  mourned.  He  died  bravely," 
said  Chalmers. 

"Did  you  meet  him?" 

"No,  but  I  heard  of  him.  Had  he  lived  he  would 
have  received  the  Victoria  Cross." 

"The  curious  thing  is,  that  when  I  knew  he  was 
dead  I  felt  it  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened 
to  him.  His  life  was  such  a  tangle,  poor  fellow. 
He  wasn't  even  faithful  to  me.  But  he  redeemed  all 
the  folly  of  his  life  in  its  splendid  last  hours,  and  be- 
cause I  felt  that,  I  couldn't  grudge  him  his  end.  I 
didn't  feel  that  I  was  wrong  in  loving  him;  I  don't 
feel  so  now.  What  I  did  feel  was  complete  acqui- 
escence in  his  death,  a  sense  of  absolution  from  my 
promises  to  him,  almost  a  sense  of  release.  Do  you 
understand  ?" 

"I  also  loved,"  was  his  reply.  "I  hoped  to  marry 
my  cousin,  Mary  Challoner.  And  I  also  felt  that 
same  sense  of  release  when  she  went  out  of  my  life." 

"Ah,  then  you  do  understand.  And,  dear,  do  you 
think  we  are  wrong  if  we  interpret  that  sense  of  re- 
lease as  the  proof  that  we  were  neither  of  us  in  the 
right  path  of  love?  I've  the  strong  belief  in  a  shaping 
Hand  that  works  upon  our  lives, — it's  the  only  form 
of  piety  of  which  I'm  quite  sure — and  if  there's  such 
a  thing,  we  may  choose  a  hundred  wrong  paths,  but 
we  always  come  into  the  right  path  at  last.  I'd  like 
to  think  that  though  neither  of  us  willed  it  we've 
been  kept  for  each  other.  I  think  it's  only  foolish 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  269 

sentimental  people  who  talk  as  if  first  love  were  the 
only  real  love.  We  have  to  experiment  in  love  as  in 
anything  else.  We  make  our  mistakes,  but  if  we're 
wise  we  learn  from  them.  The  deepest  love  is  rarely 
first  love.  It's  riot  first  love  that  counts,  it's  real  love. 
And  ours " 

"Ours  is  real  love,  Claire.  We  did  right  to  forget 
our  experiments  in  love.  That  sense  of  release  we 
both  feel  is  the  proof  that  they  were  experiments. 
They  weren't  meant  to  last.  God  be  thanked  we've 
found  each  other!  What  matters  the  roads  we've 
trodden  if  we've  reached  our  haven." 

"Our  haven !"  she  repeated.  "Yes,  that's  what  love 
is — a  feeling  of  infinite  security.  Do  you  know,  if 
ever  you  and  I  should  live  here,  I'd  like  to  alter  the 
name  of  the  house.  I'd  call  it  Hearts'  Haven.  And 
if  the  ghosts  of  the  old  seamen  know  anything  about 
it,  I'm  sure  they'll  prefer  Hearts'  Haven  to  The  Three 
Cups." 

They  laughed  together  over  the  notion,  and  tossed 
it  to  and  fro  like  a  glittering  ball,  she  reminding  him 
that  Hearts'  Haven  suggested  a  much  more  per- 
manent hospitality  than  Three  Cups,  and  he  telling 
her  that,  like  the  old  fishermen  who  had  used  the 
house  for  three  generations,  she  had  come  to  him  out 
of  the  bosom  of  the  sea. 

"And  now  I  must  go,"  she  said.  "This  rose- 
garden's  delightful.  It's  a  garden  of  forgetfulness. 
I've  even  forgotten  the  existence  of  my  Presbyterian 
Aunt." 

"When  shall  we  meet  again,  Claire?" 


270  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Tomorrow  morning,  by  the  sea." 

"At  dawn?" 

"At  dawn,  if  you  say  so." 

"I'd  like  it  to  be  dawn,  because  you  came  to  me  out 
of  the  dawn  and  the  sea.  That's  how  I  shall  always 
think  of  you.  You're  my  sea-goddess." 

"The  sea-goddess  is  going  to  have  a  very  hard  time 
in  explaining  herself  to  a  very  earthly  aunt." 

"I've  almost  as  hard  a  task,"  he  replied,  laughing. 
"I've  to  explain  myself  to  Baldy." 


n 

But  there  was  a  yet  harder  task  which  awaited  him 
and  her.  To  some  men  and  women  love  is  an  end 
in  itself.  Their  lives  meet,  like  two  tumultuous 
streams,  which  amicably  flow  in  one  channel  and 
achieve  tranquillity.  The  wild  cataracts  are  left  be- 
hind. The  dark  gorge  is  ended.  The  despairs  and 
agonies  of  life  are  over,  and  the  full  stream  slips  sea- 
ward, under  the  quiet  arch  of  uneventful  days  and 
nights,  until  it  is  engulfed  without  sound  or  struggle 
in  the  final  vastness.  In  achieving  love  such  lives 
reach  their  climax.  Here  the  story  closes  in  what  is 
called  "a  happy  ending." 

To  the  larger  and  the  nobler  souls  love  is  not  an 
end  but  a  beginning.  All  the  finest  things  of  life 
happen  after  love  is  found.  The  broader  landscapes 
lie  beyond  the  confluence  of  the  divergent  waters. 

Through  the  long  summer  day  this  thought  took 
an  increasing  hold  on  the  mind  of  Chalmers,  and 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  271 

slowly  shaped  itself  into  definiteness.  He  reviewed 
his  own  life.  He  had  been  miraculously  saved,  a 
brand  plucked  indeed  from  the  scorching  fires  of  war. 
For  what  had  he  been  saved?  Certainly  not  to  take 
his  ease  in  life.  He  had  already  swiftly  rejected  that 
vision  as  a  temptation  of  the  devil.  He  had  seen 
quite  clearly  that  there  was  a  part  he  ought  to  play 
in  the  reconstruction  of  society,  and  that  to  refuse  it 
would  be  as  dishonourable  as  refusing  service  on  the 
field  of  battle.  That  he  had  survived  was  in  itself  a 
call  to  service;  there  was  the  intention  of  dedication, 
imposed  by  the  nature  of  events. 

And  he  was  very  sure  that  Claire  Gunnison  must 
think  in  much  the  same  way.  She  had  moved  in  the 
atmosphere  of  large  causes.  She  had  been  thrilled 
and  haunted  by  the  same  dream  of  dedication.  She 
had  never  been  content  with  the  satisfactions  of  the 
personal  life.  The  coming  into  her  life  of  love  could 
not  alter  the  fundamental  altruism  of  her  nature; 
more  probably  it  would  quicken  it.  Neither  he  nor 
she  were  the  kind  of  persons  who  could  find  in  the 
satisfactions  of  passion,  however  ideally  refined,  the 
end  and  climax  of  human  existence. 

He  remembered  with  what  scorn  she  had  described 
the  kind  of  women  who  accept  bondage  for  the  sake 
of  homes,  children  and  respectability.  She  had 
made  quite  clear  to  him  wha^t  her  aversion  to  mar- 
riage meant — it  was  aversion  to  the  limitations  which 
conventional  marriage  lays  on  a  woman's  life.  She 
could  love  deeply  and  sincerely,  but  she  would  cer- 


272  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

tainly  wish  a  career,  and  would  not  permit  love  and 
marriage  to  deprive  her  of  it. 

He  found  something  infinitely  pathetic  in  the  pic- 
ture she  had  drawn  of  herself,  alone  in  London,  pour- 
ing out  indignant  amplifications  of  Olive  Schreiner's 
bitter  satire  on  the  subjugation  of  women.  He  re- 
membered having  seen  the  Story  of  An  African 
Farm  in  the  hands  of  Emily  Challoner — it  was  a 
favourite  book  of  hers.  When  she  had  ceased  coming 
to  The  Three  Cups,  a  number  of  her  books  had  been 
packed  in  a  seaman's  chest  and  left  in  the  carriage- 
house.  He  wondered  if  this  book  were  among  them 
and  crossed  the  lawn  to  the  carriage-house  to  find 
out.  In  a  dusty  corner  he  found  the  chest,  locked 
and  securely  roped.  He  opened  it,  and  found  in  it 
many  old  novels  by  nearly  forgotten  authors,  and  at 
the  very  bottom  of  the  pile  the  shabby  black-paper 
covered  book  that  contained  Olive  Schreiner's  pas- 
sionate message  to  the  world.  In  the  dim  light  of  the 
carriage-house  he  sat  down  and  began  to  read  it. 
Many  pages  were  turned  down,  some  heavily  pen- 
cilled, and  at  last  he  came  upon  the  passage  which 
Claire  had  quoted. 

"Look  at  this  chin  of  mine,  Waldo,  with  the  dimple 
in  it,"  it  ran.  "It  is  but  a  small  part  of  my  person; 
but  had  I  the  knowledge  of  all  things  under  the  sun, 
and  the  wisdom  to  use  it,  and  the  deep  loving  heart 
of  an  angel,  it  would  not  stead  me  through  life  like 
this  little  chin.  I  can  win  money  with  it,  I  can  win 
love;  I  can  win  power  with  it,  I  can  win  fame.  What 
would  knowledge  help  me?  The  less  a  woman  has  in 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  273 

her  head  the  lighter  is  she  for  climbing.  I  once  heard 
an  old  man  say  that  he  never  saw  intellect  help  a 
woman  so  much  as  a  pretty  ankle;  and  it  was  the 
truth." 

Frail,  passionate  voice,  lifted  up  in  the  silence  of 
the  African  veldt,  what  amazing  echoes  it  had 
roused!  What  a  rage  of  indignation  throbbed  in  it! 
Three  decades  had  passed  since  it  broke  upon  the 
world;  the  book  was  already  an  old  book  when  he 
was  a  boy  at  school ;  but  as  he  turned  the  faded  pages 
he  felt  the  thrill  of  an  inextinguishable  life  in  them. 
From  this  crucifixion  of  a  woman's  heart  had  come 
the  great  movements  which  aimed  at  the  emancipa- 
tion of  woman.  The  leaven  of  Olive  Schreiner's  bit- 
terness, the  fire  of  her  protest,  had  entered  into  mil- 
lions of  lives.  The  turned  down  pages  and  the 
pencilled  passages  showed  how  Emily  Challoner's 
soul  had  been  stirred.  He  tried  to  recall  her,  as  he 
had  so  often  seen  her,  working  in  the  garden,  ap- 
parently subdued  to  the  conditions  of  her  lot,  and 
wondered  what  depths  lay  beneath  the  placid  surface 
of  her  life,  what  disdain  of  life,  what  rebellious 
passion,  carefully  concealed  or  remorselessly  re- 
strained. Upon  the  perfection  of  her  flowers  or  the 
decoration  of  her  house  she  had  lavished  her  heart 
only  for  want  of  some  larger  devotions;  and  this  life 
which  others,  including  herself,  had  thought  so  per- 
fectly poised  and  placid,  he  saw  now  to  have  been  a 
life  thwarted  of  real  attainment,  denied  its  complete 
expression,  a  life  which  poured  out  its  passion  on 


274  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

trifles  and  in  secret  was  haunted  with  the  tragic  mis- 
ery of  futility. 

Was  every  woman's  life  like  this?  Was  it  a  capitu- 
lation to  what  seemed  inevitable  conditions,  a  difficult 
renunciation  never  thoroughly  accepted,  because  it 
was  felt  to  be  unjust? 

Through  the  long  summer  morning  he  read  on  in 
the  old  faded  book,  unable  to  put  it  down.  It  thrilled 
him  by  its  daring,  its  sincerity,  the  infinite  pity  of  its 
story.  It  was  indeed  "the  precious  life-blood  of  a 
master-spirit";  a  broken  heart  had  dropped  its  blood 
upon  the  pages,  and  they  were  stained  and  saturated 
with  it.  It  was  not  so  much  a  book  as  a  human  heart 
torn  bleeding  from  a  broken  body,  and  flung  before 
the  world,  with  the  indignant  cry,  "Take  that,  and  see, 
O  World,  what  you  have  done  to  woman,  what  you 
have  made  of  her!" 

He  smiled  with  bitter  acquiescence  over  its  revolt 
against  the  theological  idols  which  men  had  set  up. 
The  kind  of  God  whom  Olive  Schreiner  hated  had 
long  ago  disappeared.  No  one  believed  in  him,  not 
even  those  who  still  chanted  his  praises.  He  was  an 
abortion  created  by  human  spite  and  ignorance.  Men 
preferred  to  be  Godless  rather  than  accept  such  a 
god.  They  had  cast  down  his  images  in  anger  and 
had  jeered  at  his  pretensions.  A  little  woman  on  the 
African  veldt  had  come  with  the  hammer  of  her  irony 
and  beaten  on  his  feet  of  clay:  others  had  followed 
her  with  stronger  weapons.  The  war  had  completed 
the  ruin.  And  now  everyone  was  running  to  and  fro, 
astonished  and  fearful  at  the  immense  vacancy  created 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  275 

by  the  disappearance  of  the  Colossus — like  tiny  crea- 
tures whose  habitations  are  destroyed  by  an  earth- 
quake— and,  being  frightened  at  their  loneliness, 
everyone  was  trying  to  reconstruct  some  sort  of  Deity, 
who  should  at  least  be  intelligible,  whose  laws  should 
be  worthy  of  respect. 

Man  had  out-soared  his  God — surely  an  amazing 
situation!  And  he  remembered  the  London  preacher 
he  had  heard,  with  his  glittering  platitudes,  and  the 
comment  made  on  them  by  the  two  workmen,  who 
had  discovered  that  heaven  was  a  lying  bribe  to  keep 
quiet  men  who  had  a  passionate  sense  of  injustice. 
Wasn't  that  typical  of  how  men  were  thinking? 
Wasn't  Bolshevism,  which  attacked  the  Church  and 
destroyed  it  without  pity,  simply  the  organized  ex- 
pression of  the  same  spirit? 

And  how  was  mankind  to  get  back  to  God,  or  get 
a  new  God  in  whom  it  could  believe  with  all  its  heart  ? 

He  could  find  no  answer  to  that  question.  The 
great  writer,  whose  words  so  thrilled  him,  had  given 
none.  All  she  could  say  was,  Learn  to  do  without 
what  you  can't  have.  If  you  can't  have  God,  do 
without  Him.  Oppose  to  the  injustice  of  the  world 
a  stubborn  stoicism.  Gather  into  your  naked  breast 
its  thick-flying  arrows  and  die  smiling. 

And  that  was  no  answer.  Nor  was  it  the  whole 
answer  which  this  agonized  spirit  had  to  make.  Had 
she  not  also  said,  "Where  I  lie  down,  worn  out,  other 
men  will  stand,  young  and  fresh.  By  the  steps  I 
have  cut  they  will  climb;  by  the  stairs  I  have  built 
they  will  mount.  They  will  never  know  the  name  of 


276  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

the  man  who  made  them.  But  they  will  mount  and 
on  my  work,  they  will  climb  by  my  stair." 

That  was  surely  the  true  answer.  Through  the 
sacrifices  of  an  eternal  altruism  God  would  be  re- 
created. Men  would  go  on  laying  the  sacrifices  of 
their  broken  lives  on  the  altars  of  an  unknown  God, 
until  at  last  the  true  God  came.  The  sacrifice  would 
not  always  be  in  vain  nor  the  altar  empty.  As  the 
flames  rose  they  would  shape  themselves  into  some- 
thing radiant  and  divine.  The  true  God  would  be 
manifest  at  last;  "Behold  He  cometh  with  clouds,  and 
every  eye  shall  see  Him,  and  they  also  that  pierced 
Him" — Yes,  he  would  come.  But  it  would  be  no 
arbitrary  revelation.  Men  would  have  refashioned 
Him  out  of  their  own  broken  hearts.  The  pierced 
heart  would  reveal  the  pierced  God. 

Through  the  sunlit  air  he  looked  up,  as  though  in 
apprehension  of  that  vision.  In  the  dazzling  height 
of  the  firmament  he  saw  this  pierced  God.  The  white 
clouds  moved  majestical  across  the  sky — He  cometh 
with  clouds — 

Millions  of  men  had  caught  a  vision  of  Him  as 
they  lay  dying  in  the  bloody  mire  of  battlefields; 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  women  as  they  moved  amid 
the  dying  and  the  dead.  They  had  seen  Him  because 
their  eyes  were  purged  by  sacrifice.  In  the  old  days 
they  drank  deep  of  the  cup  of  pleasure  and  never 
thought  of  Him  at  all.  He  himself  had  been  among 
these  careless  votaries  of  joy.  He  had  not  been 
pierced  by  the  sword  of  sacrifice.  That  was  why  he 
could  not  see  a  pierced  God.  But  he  saw  now.  He 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  277 

knew  that  whatever  was  not  true  about  God,  this  was 
true — He  was  pierced.  He  knew  that  whatever  the 
secret  place  of  God  was  like,  it  wasn't  like  the 
preachers'  heaven  of  golden  streets — it  was  a  dark 
shrine  where  God  suffered.  And  His  pangs  were  the 
pangs  of  a  Divine  altruism.  No  one  could  dare  to 
draw  near  Him,  who  came  unwounded.  Men  must 
learn  to  bruise  and  break  their  lives  for  their  fellows, 
content  to  say,  "By  the  steps  I  have  cut  they  will 
climb.  By  the  stairs  I  have  built  they  will  mount." 
Only  thus  could  men  find  their  lost  God.  They  would 
find  Him  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  saturated  by  the 
blood  that  ran  from  their  bruised  hands  and  broken 
hearts. 

But  men  and  women  would  never  build  those  stairs 
for  creatures  who  couldn't  climb,  who  had  no  hope 
of  climbing.  However  unjust  a  man  found  life,  he 
must  believe  in  an  ultimate  justice,  or  he  wouldn't 
struggle  for  it.  However  base  a  man  found  his  fel- 
low-creatures, he  must  be  able  to  discern  the  germ- 
cell  of  nobility  underneath  the  baseness  or  he  would 
walk  past  them  in  proud  disdain  and  pity.  And  to 
disdain  men  was  the  unpardonable  sin,  the  true  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost. 

That  passionate-hearted  woman  in  the  African 
veldt  who  had  laid  bare  so  remorselessly  the  faults 
of  human  nature,  had  nevertheless  loved  it  with  an 
equal  passion.  She  had  looked  upon  the  great  sister- 
hood of  women,  with  their  vanities  and  follies,  but 
she  had  loved  them.  She  had  done  more  than  love 
them;  she  had  believed  in  them.  Every  bitter  word 


278  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

she  had  uttered  about  their  faults  had  at  its  root  a  faith 
in  their  ultimate  redemption.  She  had  scourged  them 
out  of  the  temple  where  they  trafficked  themselves  for 
bodily  ease,  only  that  she  might  drive  them  into  the 
purer  and  loftier  temples  of  the  spirit. 

He  closed  the  book.  There  came  to  him  the  picture 
of  Claire,  in  some  dingy  London  lodging,  bending 
her  fair  head  over  its  pages,  thrilled,  indignant,  full 
of  the  passion  of  revolt.  But  she  hadn't  stopped  with 
indignant  thought  She  had  flung  herself  upon  the 
altars  of  sacrifice.  She  had  faced  mobs,  she  had 
suffered  the  stern  blessedness  of  persecution.  And, 
like  a  thousand  other  women,  she  had  found  in  the 
war  her  true  liberation. 

And  he  knew,  that  from  that  path  she  could  not 
turn  back.  Love  for  her  must  needs  mean  not  a 
lessened  but  a  wider  altruism.  And  love  for  him,  must 
mean  the  same  thing,  if  he  was  to  be  worthy  of  her. 

There  was  no  home  built  with  hands  where  he  and 
she  could  settle  down  to  the  joyous  tasks  of  personal 
existence.  There  was  no  charmed  garden  where  they 
would  be  content  to  walk,  hand  in  hand,  behind  high 
walls  that  hid  the  infamies  of  life  from  them.  Emily 
Challoner  had  done  that  and  had  found  how  vain  its 
solace.  Claire  Gunnison  would  never  do  it.  She  had 
learned  too  much  of  what  lay  outside  Eden  to  be  con- 
tent within  it.  For  her,  the  angel  with  the  sword  had 
no  terrors.  She  would  always  prefer  the  loss  of 
Paradise  to  the  loss  of  Liberty. 

The  real  beauty  of  life  lay  outside  the  garden. 
Man  only  began  to  be  truly  man  when  he  had  escaped 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  279 

from  the  garden.  His  fall  from  Paradise  was  his 
ascent  into  manhood. 

So  he  closed  the  book,  but  he  did  not  put  it  back 
in  the  chest  where  it  had  laid  so  many  years.  It  had 
become  very  precious  to  him;  it  was  the  apocalypse 
of  the  heart  of  woman.  It  was  the  apocalypse  of 
Claire  Gunnison's  heart.  He  felt  as  though  Emily 
Challoner  must  have  put  it  there  on  purpose  that  he 
might  find  it.  From  her  grave  she  was  reaching  out 
to  him,  whispering  her  secret  to  him,  telling  him  that 
it  had  always  been  her  prayer  that  when  the  hour 
came  for  him  to  love,  he  would  love  with  a  deeper 
experience  of  love  than  had  been  vouchsafed  to  her, 
with  a  surer  knowledge  of  woman's  nature  and  the 
kind  of  love  she  craved,  the  love  that  satisfied  not  the 
senses  only  but  the  soul. 

He  went  into  the  house,  and,  going  up  into  the 
room  where  his  aunt  had  slept,  laid  the  book  on  the 
little  reading  table  that  stood  beside  the  bed. 

Perhaps  she  knew  and  understood. 


in 

She  was  waiting  for  him  on  the  sand-dunes,  at  the 
place  where  the  road  opened  on  the  marshes  and  the 
high-shouldered  bridge.  The  sun  was  an  hour  above 
the  horizon.  The  deep  quiet  of  the  dawn  lay  upon 
the  world.  Through  the  gap  in  the  sand-dunes  as  if 
framed  like  a  picture,  the  lean  shape  of  an  ocean 
steamer,  far  out  to  sea,  beating  northward,  was  vis- 


280  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

ible.  It  introduced  a  note  of  adventure  into  the  tran- 
quil harmony  of  dawn. 

"Claire,"  he  said,  "do  you  remember  what  you  said 
yesterday  about  venturing?  You  said  we  were  all  ad- 
venturers, and  that  we  must  each  go  on  with  our  ven- 
turing, if  we  were  to  keep  our  faith  in  one  another. 
I've  been  thinking  a  great  deal  about  that." 

"And  you  said  that  we  were  like  sailors  who  always 
hear  the  call  of  the  sea,  didn't  you?" 

"Do  you  hear  the  call  of  the  sea  still?" 

"Why  do  you  ask  me?" 

"I'll  tell  you.  We've  come  to  our  haven  of  peace 
and  I  think  we've  deserved  it.  But  dare  we  dwell 
in  it?  I  put  it  to  myself  like  this.  In  the  days  when 
the  old  house  yonder  was  a  tavern  I  think  it  served 
a  better  purpose  than  it  does  now.  Men  came  to  it 
weary,  and  they  went  away  rested  and  glad.  They 
would  have  despised  themselves  if  they  hadn't  gone. 
They  realised  that  their  happiness  wasn't  in  rest;  rest 
was  desirable  and  sweet  to  them  only  because  it  was 
the  reward  of  work.  So  they  ate  and  drank,  and  then 
rose  up  because  they  heard  the  calling  of  the  sea,  and 
went  back  to  their  life  of  contest.  Then  other  people 
came  who  turned  the  old  tavern  into  a  dwelling-house, 
a  place  for  pleasure.  Were  they  happier  beneath  its 
roof  than  the  fishermen  and  sailors?  I  think  not. 
Life  is  given  us  for  contest,  and  all  its  zest  is  gone 
when  its  struggle  ends." 

"I  think  I  understand.     Please  go  on,"  she  said. 

"I  know  you  understand,  Claire,  because  you  are  at 
heart  much  more  of  an  adventurer  than  I.  You've 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  281 

fought  for  things  all  your  life.  I  can't  believe  you'd 
be  really  happy  in  a  life  without  contest.  Didn't  you 
say  that  there's  a  kind  of  degradation  in  security, 
that  when  a  human  soul  has  launched  out  in  the  sea 
of  adventure  it  can't  turn  back?" 

"Something  like  that,"  she  answered  with  a  smile. 

"And  you  meant  it?" 

"I  always  mean  what  I  say.  But  I  don't  always 
think  the  same  thought.  I  don't  always  respond  to 
the  same  emotions.  There  are  times  when  I'm  tired 
of  contest.  I  strive  and  strive,  but  nothing  seems 
accomplished.  I'm  like  the  sailor  who  knows  that 
there's  always  another  storm  beyond  the  one  he's 
outridden — that  long  after  he's  dead  the  same  storms 
will  sweep  across  the  same  seas,  just  as  long  before 
he  was  born  the  same  tides  ran,  and  the  same  black- 
ness rose  out  of  the  water,  and  men  beat  their  way 
through  it  with  torn  sails,  and  ships  went  down.  He's 
the  conqueror  of  a  moment  only.  But  the  nature  of 
things  is  not  conquered.  And  when  I  think  of  that  I 
grow  tired,  O  so  tired;  and  it  seems  to  me  all  I  want 
is  just  to  be  folded  to  the  breast  of  a  man  who  loves 
me,  and  close  my  eyes,  and  forget  everything  but  love 
and  rest." 

"But  you  can't  forget.  That's  the  irony  of  it, 
Claire.'1 

"Ah,  it's  more  than  the  irony — it's  the  redemption, 
dear.  I've  described  a  mood,  but  there  are  other 
moods,  better  and  higher  moods,  when  I  would  rather 
die  than  forget.  There's  no  bitterer  dishonour  than 
to  seize  one's  personal  happiness  like  a  greedy  child, 


282  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

and  keep  it  by  forgetting  the  unhappiness  of  others. 
I  don't  say  I'm  not  tempted  to  do  it:  I  have  been 
often,  I  still  am.  All  night  I've  dreamed  of  how 
sweet  life  would  be  in  that  old  quiet  house  with  you, 
dear.  Only  our  two  selves,  shut  away  from  the  storm 
of  life,  hearing  it  only,  just  as  one  wakes  in  the  night 
and  hears  the  rain  against  the  window,  and  sleeps 
more  soundly  in  the  sense  of  shelter  and  security.  But 
in  my  heart  of  hearts,  I  know  I  couldn't  do  that.  And 
I  know  that  you  only  spoke  the  truth  when  you  said 
that  your  house  served  a  better  purpose  as  a  tavern 
than  a  pleasure  house ;  that  it  had  more  real  happiness 
in  it.  Do  you  know,  I  think  the  world  itself  is  like 
that  ?  Those  are  happiest  who  use  it  as  an  inn,  those 
unhappiest  who  vainly  strive  to  make  it  a  permanent 
habitation." 

He  drew  her  head  down  to  his  shoulder  and  put  his 
arm  about  her.  She  was  tired — he  hadn't  thought  of 
that.  He  had  always  thought  her  as  overflowing  with 
vitality.  The  clearness  of  her  eyes,  the  fresh  colour  of 
her  cheeks,  the  silver  laughter,  sweet  as  a  bird's  caril- 
lon of  ascending  notes,  her  vivacity  and  physical 
charm,  all  witnessed  that  vitality.  He  hadn't  thought 
enough  of  the  nature  of  her  past  life,  the  flame  of 
high  purpose  which  had  consumed  her,  the  exhaustion 
of  continuous  effort — the  lonely  life  in  London,  the 
fierce  adventures  of  suffragette  revolt,  and  then  the 
hospital  in  Paris,  with  its  incessant  drain  on  strength 
and  sympathy,  its  relentless  giving.  She  was  tired 
— no  wonder  that  the  thought  of  rest  was  sweet.  And 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  283 

it  was  within  his  power  to  give  her  that  rest,  instead 
of  which  he  was  urging  her  to  new  exertions. 

"Claire,"  he  said,  with  tender  compunction  in  his 
voice,  "forgive  me.  God  forbid  I  should  spoil  your 
dream.  You've  earned  the  quiet  of  the  house  where 
one  finds  love  enough.  Take  it,  dear.  I  thank  God 
I  can  give  it  you." 

She  slipped  from  his  arms  and  stood  upright  be- 
fore him,  her  eyes  at  once  tearful  and  flaming. 

"Have  I  asked  you  for  it?"  she  cried.  "Have  I 
said  or  done  anything  to  make  you  think  I  would  take 
it?" 

"You  said  you  were  tired,  Claire." 

"And  what  of  that?  Weren't  you  often  tired  in 
France?  There  was  a  man  in  my  hospital  who  told 
me  once  that  he'd  been  so  bone-weary  on  the  march, 
that  he'd  got  beyond  the  pain  of  weariness.  He  felt 
nothing,  knew  nothing;  he  was  a  dead  man  who  still 
walked.  But  he  did  walk — that's  the  point — he  went 
on.  There's  no  great  merit  in  marching  against  your 
enemies  when  you're  young  and  fresh,  and  elated  with 
the  certainty  of  victory.  Any  fool  can  do  that.  It 
requires  no  special  courage ;  it's  a  matter  not  of  cour- 
age but  of  instinct  and  high  spirits.  The  true  courage 
is  to  go  on  when  every  atom  of  your  flesh  shrieks  out 
against  the  cruelty  of  your  will,  when  you'd  like  to  die 
and  can't.  When  you've  given  up  believing  you  will 
win,  but  are  still  resolved  that  you  won't  retreat  You 
know  what  that  means.  You've  done  it.  And  in  my 
poor  way  I've  tried  to  do  it:  and  you  and  I  are  not 


284  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

going  to  retreat  now,  and  neither  must  tempt  the 
other  to  retreat.  We  must  go  on." 

"I  meant  to  please  you,"  he  said  humbly.  "I  was 
sorry  for  your  weariness  and  I  pitied  you." 

"I  know  that.  All  women  find  it  sweet  to  be  pitied, 
and  I'm  woman  enough  to  be  grateful  for  your  pity. 
But,  just  the  same,  pity  has  always  worked  the  undo- 
ing of  women.  They  like  to  be  thought  frail,  women 
whose  bodies  are  as  finely  tempered  as  a  sword,  be- 
cause it's  so  sweet  to  be  pitied.  They  are  glad  to  be 
weak,  and  will  pretend  a  weakness  if  only  they  can 
evoke  generosity  and  tenderness  in  a  man.  It's  part 
of  the  game  they've  been  taught  to  play  from  child- 
hood. They've  played  the  game  so  long  they've  come 
to  believe  in  it,  and  they  accept  with  complacency  the 
nonsense  that  is  talked  about  the  weaker  vessel  and 
the  superior  strength  of  man.  Well,  it  simply  isn't 
true.  Women  do  most  of  the  hard  work  of  the  world, 
and  certainly  endure  more  pain  than  men.  They 
don't  assume  any  airs  of  superiority  on  that  account, 
and  neither  should  they  ask  for  pity.  Pity  degrades. 
As  long  as  woman  is  so  eager  to  accept  pity  she  will 
be  inferior — it  serves  her  right.  What  she  asks  for 
to-day  is  equal  comradeship  with  man — to  bear  all 
that  he  bears,  to  march  side  by  side  with  him,  to  accept 
nothing  from  him  that  she  cannot  give." 

Her  heat  suddenly  spent  itself,  and  a  little  mock- 
ing laugh  broke  from  her  lips. 

"I'm  talking  to  you  as  though  you  were  a  com- 
mittee, am  I  not  ?  That  conies  of  having  been  a  mili- 
tant suffragette.  It's  a  habit  which  I've  never  over- 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  285 

come.  However,  it's  just  as  well  you  should  know 
the  worst  of  me  as  well  as  the  best." 

"If  this  is  the  worst,  it's  not  very  alarming,"  he 
said  gravely.  "Indeed,  it  helps  me  to  say  something 
I've  been  rather  afraid  to  say.  I'll  put  it  quite  bluntly. 
I  always  felt  you  would  want  to  go  on  with  your 
career — you  couldn't  be  content  with  ease.  I've  the 
same  feeling.  I  want  to  go  on,  and  with  your  com- 
radeship. Claire,  will  you  go  to  Russia  with  me?" 

She  looked  at  him,  startled.  "Russia,"  she  re- 
peated. "Why  Russia?" 

"Because  the  greatest  peril  of  the  world  is  Russia. 
Because  Russia's  become  a  huge  festering  sore,  which 
may  infect  the  whole  world.  She's  the  diseased  spot 
in  Europe.  If  she  can't  be  cured  all  Europe  will  be 
infected  by  her.  She's  an  infinitely  greater  menace 
to  the  world  to-day  than  Germany  ever  was." 

"I've  never  thought  very  much  about  Russia,"  she 
confessed. 

"None  of  us  have — that's  where  we've  been  mis- 
taken. We  began  by  talking  of  her  as  a  Colossus 
— her  armies  were  a  steam-roller  which  would  crush 
its  irresistible  way  to  Berlin.  She  failed,  but  how 
magnificently  she  failed!  She  left  three  million 
bodies  on  the  road  before  she  turned  back.  It  looked 
at  first  as  if  she  had  outstripped  every  other  nation 
in  enlightenment;  she  prohibited  vodka!  We  mar- 
velled at  the  daring  of  the  act  and  applauded.  It 
never  occurred  to  any  one  of  us  to  ask  whether  an 
arbitrary  reform,  created  by  an  imperial  ukase,  repre- 
sented the  national  will.  We  know  now  that  it  didn't. 


286  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

It  was  a  piece  of  tyrannical  benevolence,  as  so  much 
of  the  Czar's  rule  had  been  tyrannically  malevolent. 
Then  came  the  fall  of  Czardom,  and  again  we  re- 
joiced. It  was  another  glorious  step  taken  toward 
universal  democracy.  And,  again,  it  never  occurred 
to  us  to  ask  if  the  Russian  people,  who  had  so  boldly 
seized  their  liberty,  knew  how  to  use  it,  or  had  had 
any  kind  of  training  which  would  enable  them  to  use  it 
wisely.  They  didn't  use  it  wisely,  and  the  next  thing 
we  knew  was  that  Russia  was  out  of  the  war.  From 
that  moment  we  ceased  to  be  interested  in  her.  We 
stiffened  our  backs  and  shrugged  our  shoulders,  and 
said,  'We  can  win  without  her.'  We  were  too  busy 
winning  the  war  to  think  of  what  happened  to  her  or 
to  care.  As  long  as  she  could  help  us  we  praised  her; 
the  moment  she  sank  down  by  the  wayside,  crippled 
and  maimed,  we  forgot  her  existence.  The  result  of 
our  blindness  and  neglect  we  see  to-day.  We  left 
a  hundred  and  seventy  million  people  to  their  fate; 
they  are  revenging  themselves  to-day  by  jeopardising 
all  the  fruits  of  the  victory  we  have  won." 

"But  what  can  you  do  for  Russia  ?  When  you  talk 
of  going  to  Russia,  what  is  it  you  want  to  do  ?  Is  it 
to  fight?" 

"No,  it's  not  to  fight.  I've  been  offered  a  commis- 
sion with  the  Canadian  force  in  Russia — an  old 
friend  of  mine,  Major  Clyde,  begged  me  to  join  him. 
Since  then  the  Canadian  force  has  been  withdrawn." 

"Why  didn't  you  accept  it?" 

"I  had  no  heart  for  shooting  Bolshevists.     I  can 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  287 

shoot  wolves,  but  I  couldn't  bring  myself  to  shoot  a 
flock  of  sheep  driven  wild  by  terror." 

"If  all  that  the  papers  say  is  true  the  Bolshevists  are 
much  more  like  wolves  than  sheep." 

"I  know  what  the  papers  say,  and  so  far  from  con- 
cealing the  truth  I  don't  believe  they've  told  the  half 
of  it.  But  that  doesn't  alter  my  opinion  that  the  Bol- 
shevists are  much  more  like  sheep  than  wolves. 
They're  not  inherently  cruel,  but  they've  been  tortured 
into  madness.  A  creature  naturally  weak  and  ami- 
able,  when  driven  mad  by  injustice,  will  commit  far 
worse  excesses  than  a  much  stronger  creature.  Weak- 
ness, when  it  is  angry,  develops  a  more  deadly  fury 
than  strength.  Doesn't  the  Bible  speak  of  the  'wrath 
of  the  Lamb'?" 

"But  if  they're  mad  they  must  be  restrained.  And 
how  can  you  restrain  them  unless  by  the  sword  ?" 

"Isn't  that  a  plan  of  dealing  with  madness  which 
had  long  ago  been  discarded  ?  It's  the  method  Charles 
Reade  describes  in  his  novel — the  strait  jacket,  the 
floggings,  the  ingenious  tortures,  the  utmost  exertion 
of  brutal  force.  It  killed  men,  but  it  didn't  restore 
them  to  sanity.  The  modern  asylum  is  run  upon  the 
principle  of  restoring  sanity,  not  of  punishing  insanity 
as  though  it  were  a  crime.  Russia's  insane,  but  the 
strait-jacket  won't  help  her.  We  can't  flog  her  back 
to  sanity;  not  all  the  armies  of  Europe  could  do  that. 
We  have  to  use  suggestion,  to  push  the  evil  thoughts 
out  with  clean  and  good  thoughts.  We  have  to  teach 
her.* 


288  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"Yes,  I  can  see  that,"  she  answered.  "Guns  and 
swords  can't  suppress  ideals." 

"No,  they  can't.  But  ideas  can  push  out  other 
ideas.  That's  precisely  what  I've  come  to  see.  If 
you  can  plant  a  sturdy  oak  in  a  soil  full  of  weeds  and 
get  it  to  grow,  it  will  push  the  weeds  out  and  kill 
them.  We  can  only  overcome  evil  with  good.  When 
the  good  begins  to  take  root  in  men's  hearts  the  evil 
perishes  by  itself." 

He  was  silent  a  moment.  She  put  her  hand  in  his, 
and  so  they  sat,  gazing  out  acro3s  the  marshes. 

Presently  she  said,  "I  begin  to  see  your  thought, 
but  there's  one  thing  troubles  me.  Why  go  to 
Russia?  Isn't  there  work  enough  for  us  both  in 
America?" 

"America  hasn't  suffered  as  Russia  has,"  he  replied. 
"Her  soil  hasn't  been  saturated  with  blood  and  tears. 
When  the  soil  of  a  nation  has  been  torn  up  with  the 
plough-share  of  sorrow  you  can  sow  your  seed  in  it. 
Besides,  America  is  strong.  She  can  take  care  of 
herself.  Russia  is  helpless." 

"Your  last  reason  appeals  to  me  most,"  she  replied. 
"Ever  since  I  was  a  little  girl  any  creature  that  was 
weak  and  helpless  appealed  to  me.  I've  made  many 
mistakes,  but  they  were  nearly  all  mistakes  in 
thought,  not  in  feeling.  People  used  to  say  to  me, 
'You  mustn't  be  ruled  by  your  feelings.'  But  if  you 
aren't  governed  by  your  feelings,  what  is  there  to 
govern  you?  I  think  you're  always  safer  when  you 
follow  your  feelings  than  when  you  follow  your  rea- 
son. You're  more  like  God,  who  may  rule  the 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  289 

universe  as  a  God  but  rules  men  as  a  Father.  All  the 
noblest  acts  of  life  are  the  product  of  emotion — • 
patriotism,  love,  martyrdom.  We  don't  reason  about 
such  things.  We  feel  and  we  act." 

"Ah,"  he  said  passionately,  "if  only  the  world 
could  really  feel  what  Russia  is  suffering!  There's  a 
saying  about  Christ  which  has  often  struck  me — He 
was  moved  with  compassion  when  he  saw  the  people 
as  sheep  without  a  shepherd.  He  saw  through  His 
feelings,  through  His  sympathies;  and  that's  why  He 
saw  what  no  one  else  saw.  His  disciples  didn't  sympa- 
thise, and  therefore  all  they  saw  was  a  troublesome 
mob,  to  be  got  rid  of  on  the  terms  easiest  to  them- 
selves. He  saw  through  His  sympathies,  and  that 
was  why  he  didn't  see  a  troublesome  mob,  but  a  be- 
wildered flock  of  sheep  without  a  shepherd." 

"Yes,  that's  true,  beautifully  true,"  she  replied. 
"Why  did  no  one  at  the  Peace  Conference  have  any- 
thing to  say  about  Russia?  Wasn't  it  just  because 
they  didn't  see  her  through  their  sympathies.  They 
only  wanted  to  get  rid  of  a  troublesome  mob." 

"And  they  forgot,"  he  continued,  "that  a  hungry 
mob  is  the  most  dangerous  thing  in  the  world.  If 
you  dismiss  it  heartlessly  in  the  desert  it  will  go  away 
to  work  mischief.  It  will  be  filled  with  bitterness  and 
resentment,  and  it  won't  stay  in  the  desert.  It  will 
overflow  into  the  towns  and  villages,  lighting  fire- 
brands as  it  goes,  and  it  will  take  by  force  what  the 
world  wouldn't  give  it  in  kindness.  Claire,  that's  how 
I  see  Russia.  It  may  be  too  late  now  to  give  it  the 
bread  it  cried  for — I  don't  know.  It  has  begun  its 


290  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

march  of  devastation;  perhaps  no  divine  voice  can 
win  it  now.  It  would  have  been  easy  once,  O,  so  easy. 
A  child's  finger  can  stop  the  thread  of  water  in  the 
mountains,  but  who  shall  stop  it  when  it  is  a  river,  a 
river  in  full  flood,  with  all  the  dams  broken  down 
and  the  banks  levelled  ?  I'm  not  vain  enough  to  think 
that  I  can,  or  that  both  of  us  together  can.  But  we 
can  do  something.  We  must  do  what  we  can.  And 
if  the  flood  sweeps  us  down,  we  shall  at  least  know 
that  we  tried,  we  will  not  be  afraid  to  try." 

He  was  again  silent,  gazing  out  across  the  sunlit 
marshes  into  what  seemed  illimitable  distances. 

"We  are  but  tiny  specks  of  life  in  all  this  im- 
mensity," he  said,  "but  we  can  do  something." 

"But  we  mustn't  think  about  the  immensity,"  she 
said  softly.  "That's  an  old  temptation  of  mine. 
Many  times,  when  I've  been  weary  of  striving,  I've 
gone  out  under  the  quiet  stars  at  night,  and  have  said, 
'What  does  anything  matter?'  And  they  were  like 
bright  eyes  twinkling  with  mockery  at  my  puny 
strength.  Out  of  their  majestic  silences  a  voice  said, 
'You  are  quite  right,  nothing  matters.  We  have  seen 
a  thousand  generations  pass,  and  all  things  are  asi 
they  were  from  the  beginning  of  Time.  We  saw. 
the  first  man  rise  from  the  dust  and  proclaim  himself 
the  master  of  the  earth.  We  have  seen  his  children 
come  in  countless  millions.  We  have  seen  cities  rise, 
and  vast  armies  march,  and  conquerors  move  in  tri- 
umph, and  great  empires  and  kingdoms  established, 
and  where  are  they?  They  were  but  dust  that  rose 
in  the  sun  for  a  moment  and  caught  its  glory,  and  then 


HEARTS'  HAVEN  291 

sank  again  into  nothingness.  You  are  no  greater  or 
wiser  than  they.  They  altered  nothing  and  you  will 
alter  nothing.  Why  spend  your  life  in  a  striving 
which  achieves  nothing?  Be  content  to  breathe,  to 
live,  to  die — it  is  your  only  epic.'  Dear,  I  believe 
more  souls  have  been  ruined  by  the  conviction  of  their 
insignificance  than  by  the  haughtiest  pride  that  man 
has  ever  felt.  Pride  is  a  divine  quality,  if  we  know 
how  to  use  it.  Until  we  have  pride  in  ourselves,  belief 
in  ourselves,  we  can  do  nothing.  Let  the  stars  say 
what  they  will,  there's  a  voice  in  man  which  says,  'The 
stars  are  but  shining  dust — you  are  a  creature  who 
can  will  and  think,  you  are  as  much  more  wonderful 
than  the  stars  as  the  bird  that  flies  is  than  the  cold 
stones  of  the  mountain-top  which  he  uses  for  his  eyrie. 
Long  ago  I  ceased  to  console  myself  with  the  im- 
mensity of  the  midnight  heavens ;  I  couldn't  afford  the 
vision,  it  humbled  and  enfeebled  me.  If  you  and  I 
are  to  do  anything  that  is  worthy  we  must  first  of 
all  believe  that  it  is  something  that  should  be  done, 
and  then  that  it  is  something  that  we  can  do.  We're 
not  insignificant,  you  and  I.  We  may  be  only  two 
tiny  specks  of  life  moving  in  immensity;  but  we  are 
alive;  we  can  move,  and  we're  greater  than  the  ma- 
terial elements  in  which  we  move." 

"It  would  be  much  easier  to  go  to  Russia  as  a  sol- 
dier," he  mused.  "It's  a  clean,  austere,  fine  life; 
everything  is  ordered  for  you,  and  all  you  have  to  do 
is  obey." 

"Yes,  there's  a  fineness  in  that,  but  I  think  it  finer 
to  will  your  own  life,  and  trust  your  will." 


292  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

"But  I'm  asking  you  to  trust  my  will,  too,  Claire." 

"Not  altogether.  I  love  you,  and  because  I  love 
you,  if  I  were  in  doubt  I  would  trust  your  will  and 
accept  it.  But  I  am  not  in  doubt.  I  begin  to  have  a 
vision  of  what  you  may  do.  If  a  frail  creature  like 
Kerensky  could  hold  all  Russia  in  his  hand  for 
months,  if  a  narrow  bitter  anarchist  like  Trotsky 
could  come  out  of  poverty  and  ignorance  to  find 
Russia  plastic  in  his  hands,  surely  for  you  there's  a 
chance  of  doing  something.  Russia  waits  for  the 
wiser  voice,  the  wider  brain,  the  more  charitable 
heart.  Why  should  they  not  be  yours?  And  if  you 
fail,  you,  at  least,  will  have  failed  gloriously." 

"Not  I,  dear — say  we.  For  you  will  go  with  me, 
won't  you?" 

"I  will  go  with  you  to  the  world's  end.  'Whither 
thou  goest,  I  will  go;  and  where  thou  diest,  I  will 
die,  and  there  will  I  be  buried.' ' 

He  drew  her  flushed  and  eager  face  to  his,  and 
their  lips  met  in  a  kiss  which  was  the  covenant  of 
their  souls. 

Through  the  intense  stillness  of  the  morning  came 
the  distant  sound  of  a  steamer  threshing  her  way 
northward. 

It  was  the  call  of  the  sea,  the  invocation  to  new 
.adventure. 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE 

"You  ask  me  if  I  can  give  you  any  information 
about  our  friend  Chalmers  and  his  wife.  I  will  try 
to  set  down  the  little  that  I  know.  I  met  them  in  the 
last  days  of  July  in  Vancouver.  I  had  just  returned 
from  Siberia,  where  for  some  months  I  had  been 
busy  in  a  sort  of  difficult  police  work  which  was  very 
trying  to  one's  spirits,  and  almost  devoid  of  interest. 
Chalmers  may  have  told  you  that  at  the  time  when 
the  Armistice  was  signed  I  was  very  eager  that  he 
should  join  me,  and  I  quite  expected  that  he  would 
do  so.  Afterwards,  when  I  discovered  what  our  work 
in  Siberia  was,  I  was  glad  that  he  did  not  come.  It 
was  really  the  dreariest  sort  of  kicking  one's  heels 
that  can  be  imagined. 

"I  don't  suppose  that  I  can  convey  to  your  mind  any 
idea  of  the  immense  depression  that  Siberia  imposes 
on  the  spirit.  I  felt  as  though  I  had  been  suddenly 
pushed  out  of  the  back  door  of  the  world  into  a  place 
utterly  derelict  and  forsaken.  The  people  one  meets 
don't  seem  quite  human.  They  have  the  gestures  of 
human  creatures,  and  have,  no  doubt,  all  the  ordinary 
human  qualities,  but  they  impress  one  as  ghosts  and 
wraiths,  wandering  up  and  down  in  a  grey  atmos- 

293 


594  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

phere  of  silence  and  solitude,  entirely  detached  from 
the  rest  of  the  human  race.  I  had  a  curious  sense 
that  they  were  always  whispering  to  one  another — 
.ghosts  whispering,  if  you  understand — the  whole 
land  whispering.  And  the  land  itself  is  so  vast  and 
.so  monotonous.  You  can  imagine  no  end  to  it.  An 
army  of  a  million  men  might  be  lost  in  it  as  com- 
pletely as  a  child  in  a  forest.  The  mid-Atlantic  is  not 
more  solitary  or  more  secret. 

"I  tell  you  this  in  order  that  you  may  understand 
why  I  was  glad  after  all  that  Chalmers  did  not  accept 
the  commission  offered  him  in  Siberia.  If  I  had 
known  the  sort  of  work  that  was  expected  from  me, 
I  certainly  would  not  have  come.  I  expected  some 
real  fighting  with  definite  results — the  job  was  put 
up  to  me  as  a  kind  of  crusade  for  the  redemption  of 
Russia.  All  I  can  say  is  that  I  couldn't  work  up  in 
myself  any  sense  of  a  crusade.  You  can't  crusade 
against  ghosts.  Besides,  there  was  never  anything 
definite  in  our  position  or  our  thoughts.  It  wasn't 
like  the  Somme  or  Vimy  Ridge,  where  we  had  a  quite 
definite  army  to  attack,  an  enemy  of  whose  methods 
and  objects  we  were  perfectly  aware.  Here  we 
didn't  quite  know  who  our  enemy  was,  or  what  he 
was  thinking.  He  was  silent  and  secret  like  the  land 
itself.  We  had  a  sense  of  beating  the  air,  of  moving 
in  a  void.  I  am  not  a  very  sensitive  person,  but  this 
uncertainty  wore  me  down  and  got  upon  my  nerves. 
'Chalmers  is  peculiarly  sensitive  to  what  I  may  call  the 
-atmosphere  in  which  he  moves.  I  don't  believe  he 
would  have  stood  the  situation.  It  was  enough  to 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE     295 

make  a  sensitive  man  mad,  and  some  of  our  men  did 
actually  fall  into  a  depression  of  spirits  which  might 
very  easily  have  developed  into  mental  disease.  So, 
remembering  all  that  Chalmers  had  already  endured, 
I  was  glad  that  he  was  never  put  to  the  test  of  Si- 
beria. 

"Well,  I  met  him  and  his  wife  in  Vancouver,  as  I 
said,  and  was  never  more  genuinely  surprised  than 
when  I  found  they  were  on  their  way  to  Russia.  I 
found  him  much  improved  in  health,  bright  and  elate. 
And  his  wife  is  certainly  a  most  charming  person. 
She  is  more  than  charming;  she  impressed  me  as  a 
woman  of  singular  spiritual  energy.  Perhaps  I  use 
the  wrong  word — I  don't  mean  that  she  was  religious, 
but  simply  that  she  had  a  kind  of  force  in  her  which 
was  the  expression  of  the  fineness  and  greatness  of 
her  spirit.  It  was  something  intangible  and  perva- 
sive, something  that  breathed  through  her  words  and 
gestures;  she  made  me  think  of  Gordon  going  to 
Khartoum !  There  was  a  gladness  of  dedication  about 
her — I  fancy  if  I  had  seen  Gordon  starting  for  Khar- 
toum that's  just  what  I  should  have  recognised  in 
him  as  most  remarkable.  Chalmers  had  the  same 
look :  the  aspect  of  a  man  who  saw  some  kind  of  vision 
that  was  great  and  distant. 

"  'What  do  you  expect  to  do  in  Russia?'  I  asked. 

"He  outlined  his  views  very  simply  and  clearly,  his 
wife  adding  from  time  to  time  a  corroborating  word. 
As  you  know  these  views,  I  need  not  recapitulate 
them.  The  gist  of  them  was  that  Russia  couldn't  be 


296  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

saved  by  the  sword  but  by  education;  she  needed  not 
the  soldier  but  the  teacher. 

"I  confess  the  notion  sounded  to  me  Quixotic  and 
chimerical.  The  Russian  is  to  me  the  most  elusive 
entity  in  the  world.  He's  not  even  an  entity — you 
can't  grasp  him,  you  can't  see  him,  he  isn't  tangible. 
He's  a  collection  of  diffused  qualities,  subtle  and  con- 
tradictory; I  can't  better  express  what  I  mean  than 
by  saying  again  that  he's  like  a  ghost  or  a  wraith 
wandering  on  the  edges  of  the  world.  No  one  knows 
the  Russian;  he  doesn't  even  know  himself.  He  lives 
and  moves  so  completely  in  an  atmosphere  of  the 
imagination  that  his  picture  of  himself  is  imaginary. 
He  hasn't  really  any  national  qualities,  because  in  no 
true  sense  of  the  word  is  Russia  a  nation.  And,  like 
all  people  governed  by  the  imagination,  when  he 
touches  realities  he  is  helpless;  and  when  he  wakes 
from  his  dream  he  is  afraid,  and  goes  into  tantrums 
like  a  frightened  child,  and  is  capable  of  fearful  vio- 
lence. 

"Of  course  I  said  a  good  deal  of  this  kind  to  Chal- 
mers, but  it  had  no  effect  upon  his  own  views.  He 
smiled  quite  serenely,  and  his  wife  from  time  to  time 
interjected  a  question,  or  a  criticism  which  had  a 
gentle  irony  in  it.  It  was  evident  that  their  minds 
were  quite  made  up,  and  I  felt  it  would  be  unkind 
to  endeavour  to  disturb  an  equanimity  which  they 
found  so  satisfying.  They  were  resolved  to  go  to 
Russia,  and  the  last  thing  that  would  deter  them 
would  be  an  exposition  of  the  futility  of  their  scheme 
or  its  peril.  I  suppose  martyrs  aren't  amenable  to 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE     297 

reason.  Martyrdom  is  a  sort  of  spiritual  inebriation. 
And  again  I  thought  of  Gordon  going  to  Khartoum, 
and  knew  that  in  all  heroism  there  is  a  sort  of  noble 
obstinacy — that  you  can't  turn  the  martyr  back  from 
his  cross,  and  the  more  you  try  to  do  so  the  more 
determined  will  he  be  to  pursue  it. 

"On  one  point  only  did  I  find  myself  in  partial 
agreement :  Chalmers  was  certainly  right  in  believing 
that  Russia  couldn't  be  saved  by  the  sword.  Force 
has  always  failed  against  her.  If  we  could  march 
victorious  armies  into  Moscow  and  Petrograd  they 
would  avail  nothing.  They  might  establish  some 
form  of  government,  which  would  hold  together  only 
as  long  as  the  armies  remained  on  Russian  soil;  the 
moment  they  withdrew  the  old  Russia  would  emerge 
quite  unaltered.  It  would  be  like  ploughing  the  sea; 
the  sea  rolls  back  after  the  warships  have  passed,  and 
very  soon  not  even  a  bead  of  foam  marks  their  pass- 
age. 

"Russia  is  a  state  of  mind,  an  idea.  Her  people 
are  mastered  by  ideas,  are  the  slaves  of  ideas,  in  a 
way  that  has  no  parallel  in  any  other  race.  The  Rus- 
sian mind  is  a  brooding  mind.  It  is  really  ignorant 
of  the  practical  aspects  of  life  and  is  indifferent  to 
them.  The  Russian  revolution  is  an  affair  of  ideas. 
Lenine  and  his  kind  inoculate  the  Russian  mind  with 
a  bad  idea,  and  it  spreads  like  a  raging  infection. 
There  is  no  power  of  resistance  to  it  in  a  people  which 
is  seventy  per  cent,  illiterate.  The  illiterate  man  is 
never  practical.  He  is  familiar  with  none  of  the 
permanent  standards  which  stabilise  human  conduct. 


298  CHALMERS  .COMES  BACK 

He  can  see  nothing  but  his  idea;  he  sees  it  in  its 
nakedness,  follows  it  with  a  furious  insistence,  is  in- 
capable of  perceiving  it  in  its  relation  to  other 
ideas  and  in  its  relation  to  practical  facts.  The  one- 
idead  man  is  always  a  bigot  and  a  fanatic.  Because 
he  is  a  fanatic  he  is  guilty  of  the  wildest  excesses. 
It  follows  naturally  that  the  only  way  of  driving  out 
an  evil  idea  is  by  the  inoculation  of  a  good  idea. 
It  is  an  anti-toxin  which  is  needed.  Chalmers  held 
that  the  mind  of  Russia  was  fluid  and  plastic.  It 
could  be  educated,  and  in  education  alone  was  its  hope. 
To  quote  again  his  phrase,  which  was  the  summary 
of  his  faith,  what  Russia  needed  was  the  teacher,  not 
the  soldier;  and  in  this  verdict  I  came  to  agree  with 
him. 

"But  you  ask  the  question  whether  he  has  a  chance 
of  success  in  this  Quixotic  undertaking?  Frankly,  I 
don't  know.  I  can  give  a  thousand  good  reasons  why 
he  must  needs  fail  but  there  is  always  the  thousandth 
and  one  reason  which  affirms  the  hope  of  success.  If 
it  doesn't  exactly  promise  success,  it  remains  enig- 
matic. It  leaves  a  field  for  conjecture,  and  where 
there  is  conjecture  there  is  hope. 

"In  these  days  which  I  spent  with  him  at  Van- 
couver, my  thoughts  concerning  him  underwent  many 
fluctuations.  I  began  by  pitying  him.  From  the  height 
of  my  arrogant  commonsense  I  regarded  him  with 
ironic  commiseration.  Latterly  I  found  myself  look- 
ing up  to  him.  I  had  decreased  and  he  had  increased. 
He  had  grown  bigger,  larger —  In  the  end  I  saw 
him  godlike,  towering  high  above  me,  and  my  com- 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE     299 

monsense  appeared  a  very  paltry  coign  of  vantage, 
which  afforded  me  the  most  precarious  foothold. 

"If  you  ask  me  for  the  exact  truth  of  what  I  think 
of  him,  I  must  reply  that  I  do  honestly  think  him  a 
little  mad.  Perhaps,  however,  that  is  not  an  accusa- 
tion but  a  compliment.  Most  of  the  great  things  done 
in  this  world  have  been  done  by  madmen.  At  least, 
that's  what  their  contemporaries  thought  them.  The 
truly  shameful  fault  in  most  of  us  is  that  we're  too 
sane.  We're  too  sane  to  tread  the  road  to  Calvary. 
It  is  only  the  divinely  mad  who  risk  a  cross  for  the 
sake  of  a  quite  problematic  redemption  of  other  folk. 

"I  can't  help  feeling  that  Chalmers  is  not  so  much 
altered  as  transfigured  by  the  sufferings  which  he  has 
endured.  You  must  remember  that  for  many  weeks 
his  mental  life  was  in  abeyance.  Of  course,  in  a 
sense,  we're  all  altered  by  our  experience  of  war. 
We're  older  in  spirit.  We've  lived  through  such  shat- 
tering emotions.  A  man  might  live  to  be  ninety  in 
the  ordinary  avocations  of  life  and  never  know  a 
tithe  of  the  emotions  which  we  have  experienced. 
And  emotions  age  men  much  more  than  years.  It  is 
perfectly  true,  as  some  forgotten  poet  says,  that  'we 
live  in  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a  dial.'  We  went 
to  the  war  young  and  fresh;  whatever  else  we  did 
not  leave  on  the  battlefield  we  left  our  youth  there. 
Those  of  us  who  have  returned  know  that  we  are  old 
men.  We  can  never  again  recapture  the  first  'fine 
careless  rapture'  of  our  youth. 

"But  with  Chalmers  this  process  was  much  more 
severe  than  with  most  of  us.  I  think  it  may  be  said 


300  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

to  amount  to  a  reconstitution  of  the  molecules  of  the 
body  and  the  brain.  I  suppose  that  a  very  slight  re- 
shifting  of  these  atoms  might  produce  surprising  re- 
sults in  any  one  of  us.  Genius  itself  appears  to  be  the 
result  of  such  a  slight  reshifting  of  the  mental  proper- 
ties. It's  the  little  extra  which  distinguishes  genius 
from  talent — the  over-plus  in  one  direction,  the  new 
arrangement  of  brain-particles,  the  slight  excess  be- 
yond normal;  and  this  excess  may  be  produced  by 
what  appear  trivial  causes,  such  as  a  childish  illness 
or  an  accident.  I  think  it  is  something  of  this  kind 
which  has  happened  to  Chalmers. 

"I  know  that  I  explain  myself  badly,  because  I 
have  no  exact  knowledge  of  science;  but  I  am  aware 
of  a  sort  of  new  Chalmers  which  has  been  subtly  cre- 
ated out  of  the  old  Chalmers.  I  sit  with  him  and  talk 
with  him  much  in  the  old  way.  He  is  perfectly 
human  and  normal.  He  can  appreciate  our  old  trench 
jests,  recall  the  humours  of  the  men,  the  absurd  acci- 
dents, the  ridiculous  situations,  and  laugh  heartily 
over  them.  Then,  quite  suddenly,  a  strange  questing 
look  comes  into  his  eyes — a  visionary,  prophetic  look. 
He  smiles  gently,  but  the  sources  of  his  mirth  are 
hidden  from  me.  I  am  aware  that  he  is  moving  on 
a  plane  of  thought  quite  different  from  mine.  It  as 
though  one  who  walked  beside  you  on  a  well-trodden 
road  were  suddenly  caught  up  by  a  great  wind,  and 
you  see  him  walking  in  the  clouds.  He  has  become 
suddenly  remote,  inaccessible.  Your  words  no  longer 
reach  him.  His  words,  if  he  should  speak,  have  a 
strange  accent.  The  moment  passes  and  he  is  at  your 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE     301 

side  again,  the  comrade  whom  you  knew  and  love  and 
trust.  But  you  can't  forget  that  he's  been  away  from 
you,  that  his  mind  has  other  contacts  of  which  you 
know  nothing;  that  there's  something  in  him  which 
is  unexplained,  and  remains  inexplicable. 

"Perhaps  I  shouldn't  say  inexplicable,  because  as  I 
look  back  I  recognise  certain  elements  in  his  character 
which  suggest  a  partial  clue.  For  example,  he  was 
unusually  sensitive,  unmistakably  what  we  call  'high- 
strung/  It  didn't  interfere  with  his  courage,  which 
was  always  remarkable.  He  took  not  only  the  ordi- 
nary risks  with  coolness,  but  he  went  out  of  his  way 
to  confront  perils  which  he  might  easily  and  quite 
legitimately  have  avoided.  I've  known  him  stand 
perfectly  erect  under  shellfire  when  no  one  would  have 
blamed  him  for  taking  cover,  and,  indeed,  he  ought 
to  have  done  so.  He  did  it  as  an  encouragement  to 
his  men,  he  said ;  but  I  think  it  was  also  an  encourage- 
ment to  himself.  He  was  afraid  of  being  afraid.  His 
courage  was  not  an  affair  of  blood  and  nerve;  it  was 
a  temper  of  the  spirit.  He  had  the  clearest  apprehen- 
sion of  danger.  He  no  doubt  carried  in  his  mind  a 
picture  of  it,  as  a  highly  sensitive  and  imaginative 
man  often  does,  but  he  opposed  to  the  fear  that  in- 
vades the  nerves  and  the  fear  that  dismays  the  imag- 
ination the  courage  of  the  will,  the  drive  and  urge 
of  the  spirit.  One  of  the  lessons  which  the  war  has 
taught  me  is  that  the  bravest  men  are  usually  the  most 
sensitive  of  men;  they  know  that  they  can't  afford  to 
let  themselves  go,  even  for  an  instant ;  all  they  have  to 
rely  on  is  the  force  of  the  spirit,  and  this  spiritual 


302  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

force  carries  them  to  great  heights  which  are  quite 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  courage  which  is  merely  physi- 
cal. 

"If  we  take  this  imaginative  sensitiveness  as  the 
outstanding  characteristic  of  our  friend,  I  think  we 
do  get  a  real  clue  to  his  present  attitude  toward  life. 
Such  a  man  can  never  quite  take  the  world  as  it  is. 
He's  not  charitable  enough,  he's  not  tolerant  enough, 
he  looks  too  much  beneath  the  surface.  Most  of  us 
have  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  life,  but  after  a 
time  we  shake  down  into  a  tolerant  acquiescence  in  its 
imperfections.  Chalmers  will  never  do  that.  He  de- 
mands perfection.  He  is  haunted  by  dreams  and 
ideals  of  perfection.  He  can't  bring  himself  to  com- 
promise with  imperfection,  to  say,  'Things  are  about 
as  good  as  we  can  get  them  under  existing  circum- 
stances, and  our  obvious  wisdom  is  to  make  the  best 
of  them.'  Of  course  the  comment  of  commonsense 
is  'What's  the  use  of  crying  for  the  moon?'  But 
isn't  this  crying  for  the  moon  a  rough  synonym  for 
that  divine  discontent  which  goads  men,  the  finer  and 
the  rarer  men,  to  the  quest  of  the  unattainable  ?  And 
if  no  one  ever  spent  his  passion  in  a  quest  of  the 
unattainable,  how  little  would  be  attained  ?  Common- 
sense  writes  such  a  man  down  as  a  fool :  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  other  generations  will  crown  him  as  a 
saviour. 

"I  don't  think,  if  there  had  been  no  war,  that  Chal- 
mers would  ever  have  settled  down  to  the  complacent 
satisfactions  of  a  utilitarian  career.  There's  a  certain 
strain  of  wildness  in  his  blood,  a  spark  of  unrest  cap- 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE     303 

able  of  flaring  up  into  passionate  refusals,  admira- 
tions, devotions.  He  had  an  ear  delicately  tuned  to 
the  trumpet  call  of  romance.  He  was  bound  to  have 
followed  it,  breaking  loose  from  the  conventions  of 
a  commonplace  existence.  He  is  the  sort  of  man  who 
might  have  settled  down  into  an  ordinary  career,  and 
have  gone  about  it  in  apparent  content  for  a  dozen 
years,  and  then  some  morning  he  would  have  been 
missing  from  his  office  and  his  home;  he  would  have 
gone  off  on  some  lone  adventure.  After  many  years 
he  might  have  been  discovered,  as  a  sailor  before  the 
mast,  a  planter  in  a  South  Sea  Island,  a  dweller  in 
Arab  tents,  an  explorer  of  African  jungles,  or  a 
cowled  brother  in  a  Trappist  monastery.  There  are 
more  romances  of  that  kind  than  one  imagines.  Army 
life  revealed  a  good  many  of  them.  There  were  in 
the  ranks  thousands  of  men  who  had  strange  histories 
behind  them.  The  keynote  in  all  these  histories  was 
scornful  repudiation  of  the  commonplace. 

"The  war  gave  these  men  their  chance,  just  as  it 
gave  Chalmers  his  chance.  You'll  remember  that  he 
didn't  stop  to  consult  anyone ;  he  rushed  up  to  Canada 
and  enlisted,  and  came  back  to  tell  his  uncle  what  he'd 
done.  You  can  read  the  whole  secret  of  his  tempera- 
ment in  that  act.  And  it's  all  of  a  piece  that  now  that 
the  war's  over  he  can't  settle  down  to  a  conventional 
existence.  He  heard  the  trumpets  of  romance  blow- 
ing and  instantly  followed  as  the  children  followed  the 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin.  He  hears  those  same  trum- 
pets blowing  to-day  out  of  the  dark  night  which  cov- 
ers Russia.  How  far  he  really  thinks  that  he  can  be 


304  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

of  service  to  Russia  I  can't  guess;  probably  the  great 
thing  that  fascinates  and  draws  him  is  the  conviction 
that  there,  in  the  wild  upheaval  and  commotion,  is 
something  worth  doing,  something  that  calls  for  sac- 
rifice, courage,  devotion,  a  man's  task,  a  martyr's 
dream.  You  can't  hold  him  from  it.  If  it  hadn't 
been  this  adventure,  it  would  have  been  another.  It 
is  vain  to  woo  with  the  comfort  of  an  alien  nest  the 
young  eagle  who  has  felt  the  wind  in  his  wings  and 
has  discovered  the  ecstacy  of  flight  in  the  immeasur- 
able fields  of  air. 

"His  wife  has  the  same  temperament.  She  is  cool- 
er than  he  in  judgment,  much  more  experienced,  gayer 
in  temper,  but  fundamentally  they  are  alike.  She's 
less  of  .a  dreamer,  because  she  has  discovered  how 
many  dreams  are  pure  illusions,  but  she  is  still  an 
idealist.  She  is  more  practical  than  he,  as  I  think 
women  always  are  more  practical  than  men.  She  will 
accept  the  risks  of  this  adventure  with  a  courage  equal 
to  his  own,  but  she  will  bring  to  it  reasoned  apprehen- 
sion, the  calm  scrutiny  of  the  clear-sighted  and  col- 
lected mind.  She  will  discern  better  than  he  what 
is  possible  and  impossible  in  their  undertaking,  but 
if  she  elects  to  attempt  the  impossible  it  will  be  with 
a  will  perfectly  resolved  and  incapable  of  capitulation. 

"This  letter  has  grown  beyond  my  intention,  and  I 
must  now  bring  it  to  a  close.  I  have  been  moved  to 
write  very  fully  about  Chalmers  because  I  love  him, 
and  there  is  a  gratification  in  attempting  the  portrait 
of  one  whom  you  love.  I  want  you  to  understand 
him,  as  I  think  I  understand  him.  If  we  should  never 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE     305 

see  him  again,  as  I  confess  is  only  too  possible,  I  want 
you  to  see  him  in  his  essential  nobleness.  For  what- 
ever happens  to  him  he  is  going  on  a  very  noble  er- 
rand, and  whether  he  succeeds  or  fails  we  shall  con- 
tinue to  love  and  admire  him. 

"I  have  only  to  add  that  he  and  his  wife  left  Van- 
couver last  week  for  Vladivostock.  They  intend  mak- 
ing their  way  to  Moscow.  In  the  confused  condition 
of  Siberia  it  may  be  many  weeks  before  they  reach 
their  destination  or  we  hear  any  word  from  them. 

"During  our  last  days  together  a  curious  silence 
grew  between  us,  the  silence  of  complete  understand- 
ing. I  suppose  that  in  a  sense  we  had  talked  each 
other  out :  the  need  for  speech  was  over,  speech  could 
do  no  more  for  us,  and  our  intercourse  was  through 
our  sympathies.  I  have  thought  since  that  this  so- 
ciable silence  was  the  finest  flower  of  our  friendship. 
I  found  myself  constantly  thinking  of  Chalmers  and 
his  wife  with  a  great  tenderness,  which  was  too  deli- 
cate to  be  exposed  to  the  risks  of  language.  If  I 
could  have  spoken  of  it,  it  would  have  vanished,  like 
a  perfume  when  it  is  released.  There  was  another 
reason,  too ;  I  had  to  preserve  my  own  equanimity  and 
theirs.  We  couldn't  afford  emotional  expression;  it 
would  only  have  made  our  impending  separation  more 
difficult.  I  understood  what  Elisha  meant  when  he 
told  the  sons  of  the  prophets  to  hold  their  peace  and 
not  plague  him  with  their  voluble  vociferous  lamenta- 
tions about  the  departure  of  Elijah.  When  you  are 
waiting  for  the  chariot  of  fire  that  bears  your  friend 


306  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

away,  you  walk  in  silence  and  resent  the  impertinence 
of  speech. 

"I  don't  know  whether  you  have  visited  Vancouver, 
but  if  you  have  you  will  remember  Stanley  Park, 
and  particularly  a  little  jutting  promontory  overlook- 
ing the  narrow  entrance  to  the  harbour.  It  was  there 
we  spent  our  last  evening  together.  It  was  an  evening 
of  extraordinary  stillness.  The  sun  went  down  in  a 
perfectly  clear  sky,  leaving  behind  a  suffusion  of  deli- 
cate greenish  light,  through  which  the  veiled  stars 
shone  dimly.  A  coasting  steamer  passed  at  the  foot 
of  the  cliff,  so  close  that  we  might  have  dropped  a 
stone  upon  her  deck ;  we  saw  her  for  a  long  time,  un- 
til she  became  a  mere  speck  on  the  opalescent  waters, 
and  was  at  last  lost  in  the  deep  purple  shadow  cast  by 
the  wooded  hills.  Across  the  bay  lights  sprang  up 
in  North  Vancouver,  reminding  us  of  fireflies,  so  tiny 
and  so  scattered  were  they.  In  the  deep  hush  we 
could  hear  the  clank  of  donkey  engines  on  the  ships  in 
the  inner  harbour  half  a  mile  away,  and  the  voices  of 
men  at  work.  There  rose  from  a  hidden  ship  a  little 
cloud  of  steam,  which  sailed  up  into  the  sky  like  a 
feather,  and  was  dissolved  in  the  clear  upper  air.  We 
watched  it  disappear,  and  sat  silent  for  a  long  time, 
when  suddenly  Claire  quoted  in  a  low  voice  the  lines 
of  Tennyson's  Ulysses, 

My  purpose  holds 

To  sail  beyond  the  sunset,  and  the  paths 
Of  all  the  western  stars,  until  I  die. 

Chalmers  caught  up  the  quotation  and  continued 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE    307 

It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  Happy  Isles 
Though  much  is  taken,  much  abides — 
One  equal  temper  of  heroic  hearts. 

To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield. 

"They  both  spoke  very  softly,  with  a  kind  of  glad 
solemnity,  like  worshippers  before  an  altar,  reciting 
a  creed,  proclaiming  in  the  presence  of  unseen  powers 
their  ultimate  faith.  I  understood  that  it  was  their 
valediction.  They,  no  doubt,  meant  me  to  interpret  it 
so.  I  have  thought  since  that  it  was  almost  a  stroke 
of  genius  to  put  their  farewell  into  words  so  exqui- 
site, though  I  am  quite  sure  it  was  done  on  an  im- 
pulse. We  certainly  could  not  have  trusted  ourselves 
to  use  words  of  our  own.  I  noticed  also,  not  at  the 
time  but  afterwards,  when  I  looked  up  Tennyson's 
Ulysses,  that  Chalmers  had  omitted  the  lines  which 
speak  of  weariness,  and  lessened  strength,  and  a  will 
made  weak  by  time  and  fate.  I  suppose  he  rejected 
them  as  an  untruth,  as  regards  himself.  He  felt 
nothing  of  the  kind,  and,  indeed,  I  had  never  seen 
him  look  happier.  He  had  upon  his  face  the  kind  of 
look  which  I  had  often  noticed  when  we  went  for- 
ward to  some  dangerous  and  difficult  enterprise,  a 
look  of  supreme  satisfaction,  of  something  that  went 
very  far  beyond  happiness,  that  included  it  but  ex- 
ceeded it,  the  look  of  a  man  quietly  surrendered  to 
his  fate  and  deeply  contented  with  it,  whatever  it 
might  be.  Claire's  face  had  the  same  aspect,  but  with 
an  added  touch  of  eagerness.  And  there  was  some- 
thing in  the  intense  stillness  of  the  evening,  the  pale 
green  light,  the  fresh  scent  of  the  sea,  the  little  coast- 


308  CHALMERS  COMES  BACK 

ing  steamer  pushing  out  so  boldly  into  the  wide  un- 
known that  made  a  perfect  stage-setting  to  our  drama. 
It  was  almost  as  though  we  were  actually  rehearsing 
our  parts  in  a  drama  in  a  dim  unpopulated  theatre. 
To-morrow  the  curtain  would  go  up,  the  audience 
would  be  gathered,  and  our  test  would  come. 

"We  rose  silently,  and  took  the  path  under  the  im- 
mense trees  which  led  to  our  hotel. 

"The  next  morning  they  went  on  board  the  Empress 
of  Asia  and  sailed  upon  their  great  adventure." 

This  letter  reached  me  on  the  tenth  of  August. 
Since  then  I  have  had  no  news  of  Chalmers.  There 
is  nothing  to  be  alarmed  at  in  this.  Postal  communi- 
cations with  Russia  have  been  delayed  and  precarious 
for  a  long  time.  I  hardly  expect  any  definite  news 
until  October.  In  the  meantime,  Major  Clyde  in- 
forms me  that  he  has  certain  friends  in  Russia  to 
whom  he  has  communicated  the  facts  about  Chalmers 
and  he  believes  he  can  rely  on  them  to  give  Chalmers 
any  help  in  their  power.  It  is  very  likely  that  the 
first  knowledge  I  shall  get  of  Chalmers  will  come 
through  Major  Clyde.  The  Major  is  not  only,  as  his 
letter  reveals,  an  ardent  friend,  but  he  is  a  man  of 
great  energy,  cool  judgment,  and  indefatigable  per- 
sistence in  anything  which  he  undertakes.  Since  he 
parted  with  Chalmers  he  has  been  very  unsettled.  He 
had  tried  to  take  up  a  law-practice  in  Vancouver — he 
had  an  excellent  and  rising  reputation  as  a  lawyer  be- 
fore the  war — but  he  finds  he  cannot  concentrate  his 
interest  upon  it.  He  finds,  also,  as  so  many  returned 


A  LETTER  FROM  MAJOR  CLYDE      309 

soldiers  do,  civil  life  dull  and  flat:  besides  which,  his 
former  practice  has  vanished,  other  men  have  got 
ahead  of  him,  and  it  is  difficult  to  get  started  again 
in  the  old  grooves.  I  gather  that  he  is  restless  and 
dissatisfied.  In  a  recent  letter  he  said  that  he  wished 
he  had  gone  to  Russia  with  Chalmers.  He  adds  that 
he  is  half-resolved  to  follow  him;  if  no  news  comes 
from  Chalmers  by  Christmas  he  will  certainly  do  so. 
I  am  quite  sure  that  he  means  what  he  says.  It  would 
not  surprise  me  to  hear  at  any  moment  that  he  had 
gone.  He  puts  it  to  himself  as  a  duty,  but  I  think, 
to  quote  his  own  phrase,  that  he  also  has  "a  soul  deli- 
cately tuned  to  the  trumpets  of  Romance,"  and  sooner 
or  later  he  will  follow  them. 


THE  LONG  VENTURE 

Let  us  arise 
TAnd  go  far  hence 

Into  the  width  immense 
Of  ways  untravelled,  lands  uncharted — * 

We  care  not  whither, 
Under  what  change  of  skies, 

What  war  of  weather, 
From  whom  we  may  be  parted, 

If,  from  this  trivial  eminence 
Of  oft-climbed  days  we  may  escape, 
Rounding  at  last  the  dull  confining  cape 

Out-thrust 
Between  us  and  all  the  glory  of  the  sea, 

We,'  anchored  miserably 
In  a  calm  harbour  where  our  spirits  rust. 

For  we  are  tired 
Of  hopes  attained, 

Vain  things  desired, 
And  gain  which  nothing  gained. 

We  have  eaten,  drank  and  dressed, 
Been  careful  that  the  trouser-seam  was  pressed, 

The  white  shirt-front  immaculate. 
Talked  with  little  men  who  seemed  great, 
310 


THE  LONG  VENTURE  311 

Whose  eyes  wandered  while  we  talked; 
Driven,  ridden,  walked 
With  casual  women,  shallow-eyed 
And  shallow-voiced,  who  had  their  "views" 
Of  this  and  that;  marched  up  avenues 

Thronged  and  wide, 
A  day's  wonder,  and  the  next  day  found 

Ourselves  going  on  the  old  round 
Unnoticed,  seeking  work,  maybe, 

Work  hard  to  find  or  never  found. — 

O  God,  we  are  weary  of  it  all, 

Jazz-bands,  dances,  stale  air, 

Stale  compliments,  the  hard  glare 
Of  thronged  streets,  the  smutty  rain, 

The  stink  of  gasolene — 

We  are  not  vain, 
But  recollecting  all  that  we  have  seen, 

Suffered,  achieved,  and  been, 
We  think  we  hear  the  call 
Of  something  bigger,  the  spiritual  opulence 
Of  dawns  at  sea,  of  wide  untainted  skies. 

Wherefore,  let  us  arise 

And  go  far  hence. 

We  care  not  what  land, 

What  ambiguous  sea, 

By  what  strange  heavens  spanned, 

So  we  are  free. 
There  are  too  many  lives 


312  THE  LONG  VENTURE 

Crowded  in  cities  for  the  one  to  grow, 
The  soil  rots  over-fecund:  no  life  thrives, 
The  stream  coagulates  and  will  not  How. 
The  thronged  roots  urge  out  one  another, 

Till  man  hates  his  brother 
For  seising  that  of  which  himself  hath  need, 
And  soon  the  Hower  dwindles  to  a  weed. 

Better  the  waste  of  sand 
Where  rides  the  Arab  in  a  houseless  land, 
The  empty  prairie  round  whose  space  are  shut 
Blue  doors  of  sky  which  none  can  ever  reach, 
The  lonely  canyon  and  the  fisher's  hut 
The  sounding  sea  along  a  vacant  beach. 
We,  who  have  trafficked  in  great  spaces. 

Held  in  our  hands  great  destinies, 
Felt  the  free  winds  upon  our  faces, 

Slept  under  starry  skies, 
How  shall  we  rest  on  a  Rented  bed, 
Pay  toll  and  tribute  for  each  crust  of  bread, 

Be  accommodating,  glib,  polite, 

Come  home  punctually  at  night, 

Rise  at  a  certain  hour  and  go  abroad, 
We,  who  have  lodged  with  God? 

God  never  asked  us  to  pay  Him  rent 

For  the  sky's  blue  tent, 
Nor  sent  in  a  bill  for  the  drink  we  took 

From  the  mountain  brook, 
Nor  made  account  of  what  we  spent 
In  the  Earth,  which  is  His  hostelry; 
But  like  a  kind  Landlord  stood  near  by 


THE  LONG  VENTURE  313 

And  smiled,  and  rubbed  His  hands,  and  said 
"You  are  -welcome,  Sirs,  to  eat  my  bread, 

Don't  ask  for  a  bill,  it  is  not  my  way. 

I  am  repaid  by  your  happiness; 

But,  if  you  insist,  it  will  come  some  day, 
Let  us  say, 

By  the  PETIT  VITESSE — 
Which  is  a  train  of  French  invention, 

That  starts  out  with  the  best  intention, 
But  when  it  arrives  no  man  can  guess. 

My  gifts  always  come  by  special  express, 

My  bills  I  send  by  the  PETIT  VITESSE, 
Which  often  gets  lost  upon  its  road, 
Snared  by  a  sunset  lamp  in  the  west. 
Caught  in  a  thicket  of  stars,  maybe, 
Bogged  where  the  Milky  Way's  o'erfiowed 
And  spilt  its  fires  in  a  flooding  sea." 
So  I  have  heard  God  talk  to  me 
Like  a  wise  kind  man  who  loves  his  jest. 

There's  a  wind  that  blows 
Tonight  on  the  harbour-bar, 

There's  a  ship  that  goes 

Ere  sinks  the  morning  star. 
The  rain  drives  hard  on  the  dripping  rows 
Of  flags  strung  out  in  the  dreary  street 
And,  through  the  turmoil,  hoarsely  sweet, 

A  siren  blows — 
The  ship's  voice  calling  aloud  to  me 

Of  a  tide  that  flows, 
Of  green  waves  broken  on  glittering  prows, 


Ql'4  THE  LONG  VENTURE 

Of  the  engines'  rhythmic  ecstacy, 

Of  open  spaces 

And  honest  faces, 
Of  the  clean  rage  and  the  clean  mirth 

Of  the  friendly  sea, 
Of  all  the  bigness  of  the  earth, 
The  unapprehended  lonely  world 
Over  which  no  Hag's  unfurled, 
Where  God  sits  like  an  Alchemist 
Making  great  Dawns  from  tinted  mist, 
Making  new  islands,  Hung  complete 
Like  spring  blossoms  round  His  feet, 
Making  new  mountains,  pluckt  forth  hot 
From  the  earth's  entrails;  and  of  these  things  not 
One  that  is  not  fashioned  right 

For  man's  use  and  man's  delight. 
All  this  is  ours,  our  heritage, 

And  shall  we  rot 

In  the  miry  swamp  of  stagnant  days, 
With  eyes  glued  to  a  ledger's  page, 
Chattering  with  fools  of  games  and  plays 
Careful  to  see  one's  clothes  are  neat, 
One's  scarf  tied  in  a  proper  way, 
With  a  day  at  Coney,  when  the  heat 
Covers  the  city  with  foetid  grey, 
And  a  foolish  face  on  a  sea-side  seat 
That  simpers  to  ours — one's  highest  bliss 
A  snatched  embrace  or  a  loveless  kiss? 

Is  it  for  this  that  we  should  stay? 
By  the  God  who  made  us,  NO,  we  say. 


THE  LONG  VENTURE  315 

For  God's  not  only  a  genial  Host, 

And  an  Alchemist,  but  an  Artist,  too, 
Who,  when  He  has  wrought  His  uttermost, 

Flings  wide  the  door  of  his  studio, 
'And  seeks  that  the  work  His  soul  hath  loved 
May  be  approved; 
Being  like  man  in  this, 
That  bliss  unshared  is  empty  bliss, 
That  the  crown  of  all  achievement  Ues 
In  man's  approval — that's  the  prize 
Worth  the  striving, 
Worth  the  giving 
Of  poured  out  hearts;  for  there  is  none, 

Not  even  God,  who  liveth  alone; 
And  God,  when  He  makes  a  sun, 

Waits  man's  "Well  done," 
When  he  clothes  a  -flower  in  raiment  fit 

Grieves  until  man  discovers  it, 

Covets  the  answering  sense 

Of  beauty  in  man  fulfilling  His, 

And,  having  wrought  this  world  immense, 
Counts  upon  man  for  audience. 

When  the  night  grows  still 
Have  you  felt  the  thrill 

Just  as  the  head  begins  to  nod 
Of  a  creaking  stair, 
A  curtain  moved  on  its  brasen  rod, 

A  pushed  back  chair, 
Downstairs  the  slam 
Of  a  sudden  door,  the  swish  of  the  air, 


316  THE  LONG  VENTURE 

Like  water  parted,  as  one  comes  through 
Whom  the  soul  fears  and  yep  is  fain 
To  behold  and  touch;  yet  all's  so  new 
And  strange,  and  quite  impossibly  true, 
That  the  fluttered  pulse  throbs  in  the  wrist, 
And  the  hair  lifts,  and  you  sit  upright 
Stabbed  and  startled  by  sudden  light — 

Well,  so  tonight, 

The  curtained  sky  is  rent  in  twain 
By  a  presence,  a  voice,  a  travelling  flame, 
And  I  think  I've  got  a  marconigram 

Direct  from  God, 

"Come  and  see 

The  wondrous  things  1  have  wrought  for  ihee, 
I,  the  Artist  and  Ancient  of  Days, 
Am  lonely  till  I  have  thy  praise; 

Keep  thy  tryst 

With  me,  the  Lord, 
Lo,  I  have  spoken — heed  my  word" 

We  have  heard  that  voice  thro'  the  midnight  hollow, 

"Follow,  follow,  follow." 
We,  who  have  known  the  splendour  of  living, 
The  glory  of  strife  and  the  greatness  of  giving. 
We,  discontent  with  a  lesser  task 
Than  the  most  we  can  do  or  man  can  ask, 
Conscripts  of  glory,  we,  who  know 
Our  utmost  joy  in  utmost  striving, 
And  so  we  arise  and  go. 

FINIS 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  038  750     6 


